Crossing Lines
by Arwen Jade Kenobi
Summary: Sequel to "Crossing Back" and "Crossing Eyes and Dotting Tees." It's seven months since the events of "Crossing Back" and the fun begins with a building collapse. Jack/Ianto. COE fix it 'verse.
1. Chapter 1

Now this was just embarrassing, Ianto thought. Not only was this the second time in his life he'd been caught in a building collapse but it seemed that he'd blown his second chance at life after less than a year. This was really, _really_, embarrassing. He made a note to choose some better last words than last time. The last thing he said to Jack today was "remind me when this is all over to submit this day to Fuck My Life." That was better than a request to be remembered by a long shot. Not like Jack would have any problems remembering him after this.

The day had been a shitty one even before the building collapse. A quartet of travelling aliens had bumbled their way out the Rift and had then proceeded to try and sell the good people of Cardiff various skin treatments and diet pills. Harry had been sent to the hospitals to deal with all the people who had been silly enough to buy it all while Mel, Jack, and himself had split up to find the aliens and dole out the retcon to any innocent bystanders. None of the reserve staff was available except for Lachlan but Ianto resisted phoning him in. Mel had enough on her hands and throwing her brother into the mix would do nothing but ensure a nuclear holocaust.

Of course these four had to have shown up in his zone. He'd called for backup but no one was close enough to do any real good. In the interest of time and his own sanity he'd decided that he'd risk the end of the world and called in Lachlan Telson. He'd take the Irish spitfire on later.

Somehow, between the two of them, they'd managed to corral the enterprising extraterrestrials into an empty warehouse to explain to them that Earth was not the best place to sell their wares. Ianto had breathed a sigh of relief at that and Lachlan had stepped out to contact the others. That had seemed to be the end of it and Ianto had moved on to finding out if they had a way home.

Disastrously, said way home was via some sort of explosion which had taken the building down with him still inside it. Fantastic.

His Bluetooth had fallen out of his ear and had been crushed, thus losing any ability for the team to use GPS to find him, and he was pinned between two slabs of concrete quite effectively. He could feel the breath just being forced out of him one little bit at a time, but that wouldn't be what killed him. He'd done suffocation before after all. What would dispatch him would be the massive bleeding from his abdomen from the pane of glass that was currently embedded in him.

Ianto tried to sort out exactly how much time he had. Gwen would have read what had happened on her display screens and then would alerted the team and then phoned Andy to get the police out and the EMTs on standby. Ianto wished he was able to tell her that yes he would like some EMTs, please and thanks. Harry was amazing but he would need a hospital in the near future. That was, of course, assuming that he had one.

He hoped Jack got here before he went anywhere though. He really wanted to say a proper goodbye this time. That was all he wanted and he had promised. That and he'd ask Jack to submit this day to Fuck My Life for him.

Perfect silence for several moments. He could hear some distant noise and then let out a pained sigh of relief when he heard Mel's sharp order of "Let us through, we're Torchwood!"

Footsteps, at least four pair of. One of which started yelling his name while obviously trying not to sound desperate. Jack, then. "Ianto! Ianto! Can you hear me?"

"YES!" he shouted, his throat burned like it was a shout but he knew bloody well it was more of a rasp. "DOWN HERE!"

The sound of footsteps running around above him filled him with hope. Someone had to find him, someone had to. He couldn't be that far under. It was only two stories after all. He felt the pain in his stomach begin to fade and he knew that was a big problem. He couldn't fall asleep, not for any circumstances, he was NOT falling asleep.

He focussed on a tiny bit of light pouring into the darkness. He forced his eyes to look up. A tiny hole, maybe just over an arm's length above him; just big enough to send a signal.

Ianto struggled to bring his one free arm to his neck and somehow managed to get his steadily numbing fingers to rip off his tie. He forced his arm to stretch and push the tie and his fingers through the hole. He shuffled it around the wreckage as best he could, hoping that the tie stood out amongst whatever he was buried under.

"THERE!" That was Lachlan's UNIT issued bellow. "RED TIE, JACK. THREE O'CLOCK!"

The tie was out of his grasp and he felt a familiar hand grab his fingers. "Ianto!" came that voice. So beautiful and so important even while muffled. "Can you hear me?"

Ianto tapped his fingers twice.

"Are you hurt?

Two taps

"Bad?"

Another two taps.

"How bad?"

Now how on earth was he supposed to answer that with taps? Or with just his hand for that matter? As he wracked his brain, trying to remember the Morse code for "very fucking bad," he felt his eyes drift close and his hand grow slack. He pulled himself back to awareness and knew at the feel of Jack's hand tightening around his fingers and the corresponding yelling that Jack knew.

"You stay with me!" Jack commanded. "You stay with me. Mel! Lachlan! Can you move faster? He's dying down there!"

Desperation had never sounded good on Jack Harkness. It always made people feel more hopeless then they had any right to be. Ianto caught himself shutting his eyes again, not seeing the use of staying awake waiting for an event he probably wouldn't live to see. Waste of energy, that.

"Don't you give up!" Jack shouted down the hole. "You've made it through worse than this. You can make it through this. I know you can! You haven't said good bye, you can't go without doing that."

He had to go and mention that, didn't he?

"Jack!" Mel cried. "Give us a hand here!" Jack's hand vanished and he felt a great pressure lift off of his chest. He breathed easily for the first time in too long. The weight was still there but nowhere near as much. He felt wind tousle his hair and he squinted against the light. Whatever his hand was sticking through now vanished and he felt his hand fall back down to his side.

Jack's hand caught his and next thing he knew Jack other hand was on his forehead. "Ianto, open your eyes for me. Come on. You can do it."

Ianto opened his eyes and suffered a déjà vu so extreme that he almost believed he was actually at Thames House in September 2009 and not in some collapsed Cardiff warehouse in August 2013. "There you are!" Jack beamed with an agonized forced cheerfulness. "Knew you could do it."

"Glass," Ianto said, bringing this conversation to the point. He twitched his free hand toward his stomach, which was still covered by whatever was on top of him. "Gonna…bleed out."

Jack looked down and appeared to go green. Ah, so that puddle of blood must be getting rather impressive. Ianto gave himself bonus points for still being able to speak.

"FASTER!" Jack yelled. "We need to get this wall off of him!"

It was a wall? That made sense. Jack vanished again, Ianto could barely hear anymore. He did, however, hear his own horrifying howl when the thing was pulled off of him, ripping the embedded glass out with it.

Harry descended upon him in moments from out of nowhere, Mel and Lachlan appearing as de facto nurses. Lachlan was limping and one arm was certainly not symmetrical to the other. Mel was clearly shouting at someone through the Bluetooth, it was either Rhys or Andy. Everything was getting that same blurred around the edges feeling that he'd sort of noticed at Thames House that day. The only thing that seemed somewhat in clearer focus was Jack, who was at his head holding him still by the shoulders and looking down at him. He was saying something but his lips were moving too fast for him to understand a word. He just nodded as best he could.

"Stay with me." Jack's voice was coming through now. "You have to stay with me."

Seven months ago he'd made Jack a promise. It was a promise he'd hoped he'd not have to act on for awhile yet. No choice now. He moved a hand. It felt almost as heavy as it had when he'd woken up in their bed that day. He flung his bloodied hand around Jack's neck and pulled him down so he could whisper in his ear. "I'll be okay," he rasped. "You know that."

Jack shook his head. "Stay," he begged. "Please."

"I love you," he brushed lips against Jack's cheek.

"Ianto, no!"

Ianto shut his eyes and let go.

"He's not breathing," Mel reported.

It registered in Harry's mind but he didn't allow himself to think of the man's name. Everything personal had to be left aside. Mel would have made a good doctor, he mused. Her detachment was a frustration at the best of times but, right now, he wished like mad that he could have her ruthless rationalism at hand.

"Jack, get back," he ordered.

It was a silly order and he knew it. He waited for the muscle to enforce it anyway. Lachlan pulled Jack away, still forceful with only one good arm, and Jack immediately started to fight him. "Get the hell off me, Lachlan!" he snarled. "_LET ME GO!_"

"You stay where you are!" Mel ordered. "Let Harry work here!"

Sending off a silent thanks to his friend he moved up to give those two first breaths. He was ordering Mel to go grab the defib out of the SUV as he started pounding Ianto's chest. "Andy," he panted into his Bluetooth, "where the fuck is that ambulance?"

"It's trying to get through the street closures," Andy replied. "Not my idea but I'm trying to get rid of it. Is it bad?"

"It's Ianto." That was all that was needed. Two more breaths.

Mel arrived with the defib and she ripped open Ianto's shirt to get to his chest. "Harry?"

"Don't mind the blood, just stick the pads on," he urged.

"Harry look!" She grabbed him and pulled him to look at the gapping tear in Ianto's midsection.

At least there should have been a gaping tear in Ianto's midsection.

"Harry!" That was Lachlan's voice. "What's happening?" A strangled yelp and Harry knew that Jack had broken free but it didn't matter anymore. Jack all but threw him aside and he heard him gasp. He'd noticed, then.

Ianto Jones had been impaled by a pane of glass which had then been torn out. The gash in his stomach that was no longer bleeding was not an appropriate signature for such a blow. The other point of concern was the fact that this tear was getting smaller.

"He's healing," breathed Jack in wonder.

"He's not supposed to be able to do that," Mel all but snapped. She fixed her green laser stare on Harry. "Harry did you-"

"I checked!" he reminded her sharply. "Martha checked, bloody UNIT checked. He's as mortal as the rest of us."

As if in defiance of that remark Ianto's eyes flew open and jerked to a sitting position as if someone had tied ropes to his limbs and then pulled. Hard. He sat up gasping and looked wildly around him and then started to fall backwards again. Jack moved just in time catch him before he smashed his head on the rubble. They looked up at each other. Jack was gaping at him and Ianto was blinking like Jack as though he didn't know him. Harry didn't think he'd ever seen either of them look more confused.

"Did I do it again?" Ianto rasped.

Jack had no words. He only leaned his head down, resting his forehead against Ianto's and took deep, shuddering breaths. Ianto raised a bloody hand up to rest on top of Jack's head. It would have been quite a romantic moment circumstances notwithstanding.

"Cancel that ambulance," Harry told Andy on the Bluetooth. "Tell them it's all under control."

"Is it?"

Harry shook his head, forgetting that Andy couldn't see it. "I'm not sure."


	2. Chapter 2

When Ianto had let go he'd expected to find himself in that blackness again. Oh well, he'd thought. He'd gotten out of it once before after all. Sure he'd had help but he knew it was at least possible. Not like he'd have anything better to do either.

Instead he'd been surrounded by light and that damned radio static noise that Jack had told him about. Radio static being what the dead on the light side sounded like to anyone who wasn't dead. That's odd, he remembered thinking. If I'm dead I should be able to hear and see what's going on. What _is _going on then?

It had been a surprise, not an unwelcome one to be sure but a surprise nonetheless, to suddenly find himself right back in the ruins of that building surrounded by the aghast team and a bloody near shattered Jack resting his head on his in some effort to not fly apart. Ianto was surprised he hadn't just passed out again after asking if he'd done the impossible again. The answer was obvious and this was a bit much even given his history. He also wished he had once he'd heard Harry belay the order for an ambulance. He was in a world of trouble now.

Harry Olden was an easy man to underestimate. He was so socially awkward even amongst the team and such an oddball at times that it was always a surprise to see Harry change when he tackled the world as _Doctor _Harry Olden. When that switch was flipped, when Harry became assertive, authoritative, and other words beginning with a, you really didn't want to get in his way.

Ianto, whether by his fault or not, was now on the receiving end of that. Harry had missed something about him and he'd be damned if he couldn't figure it out. Ianto appreciated this part of Harry and loved Harry in his own way but, really, Ianto felt much safer the doctor was away from medical equipment. He had no desire to die again today.

"Can't we just write this off as me being extremely lucky?" He asked once Harry and Mel were forcing him onto the examination table. He knew that this reasoning had about as much of a chance of working as an icicle had surviving in hell but humans did stupid things to save themselves from pain. He was no exception.

That tactic only gave him pain as Mel pressed him down harder into the table. That was another thing that Ianto was getting used to: that so small a body could have such strength in it. By rights his shoulder should have been dislocated by that display. "You bled to death right in front of us and we watched you heal right in front of us," she reminded him. "You came back funny if you expect us to leave that alone."

"I'm fine!" Ianto griped. "I'm right as rain, really!" Not entirely true, he had to admit. He still felt something akin to a mild stomach ache but didn't consider that worth anyone's trouble. It would be gone by the evening he gathered.

"Oh yes, you're fine," Harry taunted from the other side of the room. "Bloody hell, how do you manage to say these things with a straight face?"

"Ianto, do what they say." That was Jack, authoritative and almost god like from up above. Before Ianto could crank his head up and offer even something as lowly as a 'yes, sir' Jack had vanished. The retreating footsteps informed him that he'd left for his office. Probably to brood, Ianto knew. So long as he didn't go up on the roof Ianto would keep his mouth shut on the subject. He knew how Jack felt after all.

He shut his mouth and let Harry do what he needed to do. "You didn't miss anything," he told him, trying to make his friend feel better as well as get him to put the needles away.

Harry sighed. "Look," he explained tiredly. "Obviously I've missed something if you can pull a Jack-like stunt like that without any indication that you're like him at all." He went on with his work in complete silence, quite a change of character. Harry babbled when he worked and always spoke to his patients to make them feel reassured. Ianto could have done with a bit of that. Everyone seemed to be forgetting that he was just as confused as they were and was bloody terrified at what it meant for him. Worst case scenario, he'd die really soon. Best case scenario, he'd not die at all. Both concepts were terrifying. Perhaps assigning the 'best case' and 'worst case' modifiers were irrelevant.

"Alright, you can go."

That was quick. He hadn't taken note of the time when they'd arrived down here but it had to have been no more than an hour long exam. He lifted his head up and raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristically silent medic.

"Seriously," Harry reassured him as he settled behind his computer. "Go home and rest. Take Jack with you if you can. I'll close up, I'll be here late."

Normally Ianto would offer some words of concern at a remark like that, but he instead took his shirt and jacket back and fled the medbay for the kitchenette. He wasn't quite ready to go up and see Jack yet, especially not without coffee or food in hand, and he also wanted to leave Harry with a full pot and make sure there was something lying around for him to eat.

"I'll take it to Harry," Mel offered as she appeared by Ianto's elbow, nearly causing him to leap out of his skin, "You need to get up there."

Mel was offering her opinion on her boss`s mood. That was a warning sign as obvious as a stop sign. "Is it bad?"

She considered that for a moment. "Gwen was up there for a bit," she reported. "She gave me the thumbs down on her way out."

That was saying something. With him, Tosh and Owen gone Gwen and Jack had really stuck together like glue, at least that's what he'd heard. They'd carried each other through the mess that had been the aftermath of the 456 and countless other things over the past three and a half years. This, in Ianto's universe, was far below the absolute clusterfuck that had been the 456 and the fact that Gwen hadn't managed to talk some sense into Jack did not bode well.

"Best of luck," she said as she picked up the mug and grabbed the entire package of biscuits instead of the plate that Ianto had put together for Harry. Probably a better idea, he allowed. He brought the plate up with him but didn't bring any coffee. The key was to get Jack out of the office, not get settled in there.

Door closed of course, Ianto sighed and ate one of the biscuits in one bite. Usually he'd knock but he decided this wasn't the time for gentlemanly gestures. He opened the door to find the office empty. He put the plate on Jack's paper ridden desk and grunted. In the old Hub the next place to check would be the manhole where he'd lived. That had not been built in to this Hub, thank God, but that meant there was only one place Jack could be right now.

There was no way he was going up there. He'd already died once today and he had no desire to tempt fate. He picked up the receiver of Jack's desk phone and stabbed in Jack's mobile number. A stack of papers vibrated. Wherever he'd gone, he obviously didn't want to be reached.

"Mel," he ordered as he exited Jack's office, "check the CCTV. Is Jack on the roof?"

Technically speaking the Hub, naturally, did not have a roof, but there were a few nearby locations that were favourites. Mel tapped at her keyboard and scanned the screens. "Nope," she reported. "He's not on the roof of your building either."

Great. He really was not up to going Jack-hunting all over Cardiff. "Right," he announced. "I'm going home. If he comes back, ring me." He didn't stay to see Mel's nod. Sticking around to see it was a waste of energy, Mel was the most reliable person in the place, and Ianto very badly wanted out of the Hub.

- - -

The radio was playing something particularly offensive but Ianto didn't shut it off. Instead he cranked the volume louder so Lady Gaga's cries of wanting her object of desire's bad romance thumped through the car. There was an urge to scream along with the lyrics but, honestly, he didn't know them. This had come out after he'd died so he'd missed the chunk of time in a song's life where it would get in your head so deep that you'd know all the words of the song despite hating every beat of it. He didn't want to deal with finding a better song on another station nor did he want to sit in silence in the car. It was a short trip but he didn't want to spend it in an environment that so resembled where he had been earlier today.

He'd been a building collapse and had walked away from it. That was twice now he'd done the impossible. The only difference was that this go around he hadn't spent three years planning it. What did he think about this, really? Was he glad he was alive? Of course, but he was concerned about the future. He knew without a doubt that no matter what Harry did or did not uncover that the entire team would be with him. That included Jack despite his current absence. That didn't mean he was abandoning him. At least he really hoped so.

Ianto cranked the volume louder, draining out the parade of what ifs and what abouts. No need to even touch those until he had some clue what was exactly going on. All he would do was worry himself sick and that was no good to him or Harry or Jack or anyone else.

He parked the car, locked it, and slowly made his way into the building. When he finally made his way up to their flat he allowed himself to sag to the floor and sit against the locked door. His head lolled back to rest against it, thudding gently. He shut his eyes and sighed.

"You alright?"

Jack's voice should have taken him by surprise but it really didn't. Where better to hide from the universe than at home after all? "Yeah," he nodded. His hand moved across his stomach. No more pain.

"Stomach bothering you?" Jack asked.

"A little bit earlier," he admitted. "It's fine now though."

Jack looked at his watch. "Not bad," he said, impressed for some reason. "The first time I came back my back hurt for days." He let out a small snort of laughter. "Felt like I was still lying there. I was surprised I was walking."

Ianto had no idea what Jack was talking about. Well, rather he knew exactly what he was saying and what he was referring to but had no idea exactly why he was mentioning this. "Would you rather I was still lying down complaining of compressed lungs and torn abdomen then?"

No response to that. "It took me 'til the fourth or fifth death to be up on my feet so fast," Jack declared.

Ianto snorted. "I've seen what you eat, sir. I'm surprised that it doesn't circumvent your immortality entirely."

"Stop joking about this, Ianto!" Jack snapped. "It's really not funny."

"Am I laughing?" He shouted back, rising to his feet in challenge. "I must admit a building collapse and then fucking dying _again_ is the funniest thing ever conceived since that teddy bear thing asked Mel to marry her last month. A real bloody riot this whole day has been, Jack. Fun and games."

"You said that it wouldn't happen again," Jack fumed, stepping closer to Ianto. It was supposed to be intimidating but Ianto didn't budge. "You said you'd be careful."

"I _was_ careful!" Ianto roared. "How was I supposed to know about their unique exit strategies? You certainly didn't mention anything so I'm guessing that you didn't know either. No one's fault, it's part of the fucking job. I've accepted that. I've accepted it THREE TIMES now. Why on earth can't you?"

He stormed past Jack, heading for the kitchen. He didn't know whether he was going to grab the booze, the coffee, or the tranquilizers. He needed something to deal with this shit.

"You need to stop your brooding," Ianto half lectured him as he grabbed a glass and started rummaging through the cupboards. Booze it was then. "Honestly. You're not god, Jack. If I had died out there today it wouldn't have been your fault, just like it wasn't your fault the last time. You didn't make me walk into Thames House – "

"I told you to stay the fuck out of there," Jack reminded him with a ferocious hiss.

"And like hell I was letting you go in there alone. You would have done the same thing if positions were reversed, immortality or not, and you know it." He poured himself some whiskey and took a drink. He didn't even notice the burn. "And you know something? If your Doctor turned up and gave me the chance to do the whole thing over again I'd still go in there."

"No you wouldn't," Jack shook his head, his anger slowly ebbing. Voice was loud enough for sure but the anger was slowly leaving. "If you knew then what you now -"

"Changes nothing," Ianto argued. "I know my place Jack. Just like Tosh knew her place and Owen knew his. Like Mel and Harry and Gwen know theirs. Our place is here, with Torchwood, doing what we can no matter what the costs to ourselves. You just happen to be along for the ride." He poured himself another three fingers full and then tossed it back. He took a deep breath and softened his voice. "I'm really sorry that you have to watch us all fall. Every single one of us is going to leave you for good one day but that's no reason to sit up in your office and brood about things that never happened."

"Has it ever happened to you before?"

Ianto blinked. "What?" he asked flatly.

"Have you died and come back before today?" he clarified with another snap. "Not counting the first return."

_The roof_ was what Ianto's brain said. What left Ianto's mouth was "of course not!"

That seemed to diffuse Jack like puncturing a hole in a hot air balloon. He sighed and slumped and for a moment Ianto thought he was going to fall onto the floor. Instead he staggered over to the couch and fell on that. Ianto didn't know whether to roll his eyes or fetch a blanket. Instead he got another glass and poured Jack a drink. Then he topped off his.

"Thanks," Jack mumbled as he attempted to sip it while lying sideways. He eventually succumbed to necessity of sitting up but not quietly. "Your health," he saluted, and then took his drink like a shot.

"Thanks," Ianto mumbled and knocked back his drink as well. This was bad, he thought. He hadn't pounded back whiskey this easily since after Lisa had died.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," Jack sighed as he put his glass on the coffee table and pushed it away. "I'm just…I...I," he threw his face into his hands and his fingers dug into his skull. "You scared the crap out of me today."

It was an honest statement, Ianto knew that but the look on Jack's face once he took his hands away from it was almost like a baffled madman and the state of his hair certainly lent itself to that description. He let out a quick snort of laughter before he caught himself. "Sorry," he said, "on both accounts. I'll insist on Torchwood providing transportation from now on." He got a shadow of a smile at that and counted that a small victory.

Jack shrugged out of his great coat and shooed Ianto away when he offered to hang it up. Instead he let it lie across the back of the couch and patted the empty spot on the couch. "Movie?" he asked.

Ianto really had no opinion on what to watch and all Jack said was comedy. After scanning their slowly growing DVD collection he pulled out "Clue." Nonsensical despite dealing with murder, just what the doctor ordered. The events of the day were not mentioned again and Ianto was just fine with that. They'd certainly discussed it enough for comfort. He was just glad that he was still here and that Jack seemed okay.

Eventually Ianto decided he needed to go to bed and left Jack, who was dozing himself, to get out of his suit. About half an hour later he felt the bed dip and Jack slip in to spoon up behind him. "I love you," he whispered to him. "Try not to do that again."

Ianto wasn't sure whether he should make a quip about whether he meant the dying or the coming back part. Instead he said. "No promises."

Jack accepted that with a light kiss on the back of his neck. Ianto smirked. He'd won this round and he'd come by it honestly. That was a first.

_What about the roof?_

Ianto imagined beating that thought into submission with a cricket bat until he fell asleep himself.


	3. Chapter 3

It was all darkness again. Silence and blackness. Ianto knew he was yelling for Jack, but couldn't hear a thing. He wanted to get hold of him before he was dragged back to the land of the living again. As he always would. He wanted to say goodbye. He wanted to say something, anything to ease Jack's pain and ease his own. He refused to have Jack's last memory of him be what he knew it would be if he didn't find him soon.

He heard something that sounded like Jack and he rushed toward it, only to feel the ground fall out from under him. He reached out and grabbed frantically at empty air. There had to be something to grab onto. Something. His mouth opened and his throat burned. He was screaming but he couldn't hear it.

"Ianto, stop it!"

"Jack?" he screeched. "Where are you?"

"Ianto I – ow, dammit that's my face - Ianto! Wake up!"

With that command Ianto's eyes, which he hadn't realised had been closed, flew open to reveal that he wasn't in the darkness at all. He was in sitting up in bed, at home and alive, with a very worried looking Jack Harkness sitting across from him and digging his fingers into his shoulders. Ianto also realised that his own hands was on Jack's shoulder, where they appeared to have fallen from Jack's face. There were angry red scratches on the other man's face which were slowly starting to fade.

"Shit," Ianto sighed, voice still groggy somehow. "I'm sorry – "

"Doesn't matter," Jack assured him as he batted Ianto's hands away. He simply held them in his and remained where he was. "What were you dreaming about?"

In his other life Ianto would have said nothing, this time he'd vowed to hold nothing back. Keeping quiet had furthered the problems in their relationship and there was to be no more of that. "I was in the dark again," he explained. "The dark but not, I guess. Whatever it was I was trying to get out of it."

"Was that where you were today?" Jack asked cautiously.

Ianto shook his head. "No," he promised. "I think I was on the other side with everyone else. There were definitely people there. I just couldn't hear them."

"Radio static?"

"Radio static," he confirmed. "That was my first clue that something wasn't quite right." He raised an eyebrow. "Is that where you go when you die?" Jack had always said that there was nothing when he died but maybe things had changed after Owen had dragged him in to help that time.

"It was the dark before," Jack began. "Now I think I'm getting closer to that. I'm just outside of it. That grey thing I always saw was the doorway and I know that now. I'm always outside of it, I know that, but sometimes I think there's something else there. Like there's more grey matter there so to speak."

A flash of memory came to Ianto while Jack was talking. Just a quick flash of him walking away from Owen and Tosh, bursting through some doors, and seeing Jack wandering in the darkness outside of them alone. He heard himself yell for him but Jack didn't turn.

"You okay?"

Ianto nodded his head quickly. He needed to clear his head and both assure Jack he was fine, shaking his head would have just confused him. "Yeah." He squeezed Jack's hands. "I just think once or twice that extra 'grey matter' was me."

Jack was silent for several moments in response to that before deciding the best way to respond was to pull Ianto close and hold him. Ianto allowed himself to melt into the embrace. "I don't know," Jack finally said after several more moments of silence, "whether I want you to be like me or not."

Ianto didn't know either for what were probably the same reasons Jack would give if he had the courage to ask. If he was to be like Jack he hoped that the fact that they would have each other would make things easier for the both of them. Even if one day they decided to part ways it would be good to have one person around that you knew would never leave and would be able to understand your position. The burden of immortality could be shared between him and Jack instead of endured by one of them alone.

"That being said," Jack continued. "I know I can't watch you die again. One way or the other, I mean."

"I've done it for years," Ianto reminded him. He knew all too well what it was to watch someone you love die repeatedly. It didn't matter that he knew that Jack would be back. It still hurt. "It's awful," he admitted, "but it is good to know you'll be back. It makes it a little bit easier."

"But it's still awful, right?" Jack asked. "I've seen your face afterwards."

"Never denied it," Ianto said calmly. "I said it helps. Not that it's easy." He wished Jack hadn't brought this up again. Not because it made him uncomfortable, which it did, but because Jack was clearly uncomfortable and still reeling from the events of...was it yesterday now? Yes. Yesterday.

"What if that was the last time?" he was asking as held Ianto tighter. Ianto swore he heard his back snap. "What if we never know? What if --"

Sometimes the only way to shut Jack up was to kiss him. So Ianto wriggled himself out of Jack's vice grip of an embrace and then did so; short and sweet and then pulled back. "Then we make the most of it," Ianto pronounced by way of an order. "No matter what Harry does or doesn't find. I'm here now and so are you. That's all that should matter to us."

Jack Harkness was many things to many different people but one thing that Ianto thought that few people realised that Jack was one of the most caring people around. Yes he'd tried to shove people away and often succeeded but Ianto didn't blame him for that. Lord knew he himself had done it to people before for lesser reasons, but it seemed that the more Jack pushed away was directly proportionate to how much Jack cared. It was really a general rule for most human beings but it seemed more so with Jack. And because Jack loved all that much he worried that much more.

Ianto allowed himself a self satisfied smirk when Jack gave him a subtle nod of agreement and rolled out of bed. "We'd better get going," he said, heading toward the shower. "No doubt Harry wants to poke and stab me next and I'd rather get it over with sooner rather than later."

"Now that's a first," Ianto observed as he followed Jack. "The last time the yearly medical exam came about I seem to remember Owen and I tearing the city looking for you."

"That's different," Jack grumbled as they entered the shower. Good thing this apartment had a really large shower, Ianto thought. Jack and him often showered together to save time in the mornings, or to waste it, but Ianto had been living here since he'd first started working at Torchwood Three and there had been no ulterior motives for wanting a shower that could probably fit a third person in a pinch. Not that he was complaining, of course.

"How's that different?" he asked. "And get your elbow out of my side please."

"Sorry. Here, you use the shampoo first. You've got shorter hair."

"Diversion tactics are failing, Jack," Ianto informed him in sing song tone. "Answer the question or I'll ensure that we're late."

Jack swatted his hand away from his crotch and that almost answered the question for him. "This involves you," he said matter-of-factly, "and if we can learn something from me or use something from me I want Harry to find it fast. Just in case we do have a set timeframe to work with here."

"I thought we'd eliminated that. At least that was the impression that I got from Harry." There were also no late night phone calls. Ianto knew that without checking the mobiles. If they hadn't answered their phones Harry would have had no issues coming over and breaking their door down. He'd have brought Mel and Gwen for reinforcement too.

Jack sighed as he took the shampoo from Ianto's soapy fingers. "I know. I just want to be sure."

Ianto really had nothing to say to that. Just wanting to be sure was really Jack's way of saying he was expecting the worst and sort of hoping for the best. He didn't blame him for it but he hoped it would be something that would fade from Jack with time.

"Fair enough," was all he said. They finished their showering without any further advances from Ianto and were out the door in record time.

- - -

Jack must really be worried, Ianto thought. The first thing Jack had done upon walking in to the Hub was to pass off his great coat to Ianto and head right off to the medbay. Not a hello to Gwen or Mel or warning to see if Harry was even there. Neither woman said anything and Ianto simply hung up Jack's coat in his office, got everyone their coffee, and then headed back down to the archives.

Before the attack of the well meaning, enterprising, aliens who had almost unintentionally killed him Ianto had been in the process of cataloguing some artefacts that Mel and Rhys had pulled out of the bay one night. A part of him had naturally feared for another pair of troublesome gloves but he'd been relieved to discover that they were simply scrap metal. Mel had gone through them all and identified what they all had been and now it was up to Ianto to put them in the appropriate places. He'd never approved of having a section simply called "scrap metal" so everything had to filed under precisely what they had been a part of before being deemed too broken to be good for anything. He vaguely wondered if the next alien threat would be intergalactic littering.

He'd just finished sorting everything and was heading upstairs to write up his report about the mess that had been yesterday when he heard footsteps coming down into his domain. The step was too light to be Jack's but it wasn't light enough to be Gwen's or strong enough to be Mel's. Harry's it was then.

The brown haired doctor soon appeared with a small wave. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Well," Ianto replied shortly. "Nothing hurts. Did you go home at all last night?"

"No," Harry admitted, rocking back and forth on the sides of his feet. "You're a puzzle, Ianto Jones."

"Well I'm sorry to see that I kept you up all night."

"Most of the night," Harry corrected. "I did get some sleep after all."

Ianto said he was pleased to hear that and then asked Harry to come to the point. Was something wrong?

"Nothing's wrong, per say," Harry admitted. "You're fine and of course Jack is fine. Your readings are completely different by the way. Jack's are just as weird as they've always been and yours are just as normal as they've always been…with one exception."

"And that is?" He wasn't worried, really he wasn't. Harry seemed more so curious than worried. That was an encouraging sign. His calm was shaken when Harry took his arm and led him to the back of the archives and looked carefully back at the stairs.

"I'm not hiding anything from Jack," Ianto told him once they were settled in the space between the regular archives and special archives.

"You probably have been hiding this if I'm right," Harry replied easily. "That's why we're back here. If you've got your own reasons for hiding this from him that's your own business but I need to know this."

There it was, Ianto noted. The switch had been flipped again. Harry was in his work and he was all business now. "You sustained massive wounds yesterday," he said. "But those healed very much the same way Jack's do. We all saw that and I've already told you that you and Jack don't have the same readings. You do, however, share one little thing in common if I use the right equipment." He points up at the ceiling. "Jack may heal wonderfully but his injuries leave their own little traces, each one lasts about year or two according to his medical records and my own experiences. I can't tell you how many times he's died and in what ways over his entire life but I can tell you every injury he's ever had in the past two years."

"You can tell injuries I've had though," Ianto pointed out, "most of them are on record."

"Of course, I can," Harry assured. "I wouldn't be much of a doctor if I couldn't. However, when you came back, all traces of any breaks or sprains or whatever were wiped clean. My records say you broke your leg falling when you were a child but your body has no record of it. You were the picture of health in January, almost newborn in perfection. The scan from yesterday, notwithstanding the injuries you sustained yesterday, tells me something different."

Harry grabbed Ianto's right forearm and pulled it up to shake it in his face. "You broke this five months ago but I never treated you for this nor do I remember ever seeing you in a sling or a cast. That can only make me think one thing."

Ianto was honestly shocked by that statement. He hadn't broken his arm. Unless they'd all retconned themselves like that had once before. That would have come up by now though.

"Not just your arm either," Harry continued, releasing Ianto's arm. "You cracked your skull, shattered your femur and a good portion of your spine as well. Conventional scans say none of this ever happened. Only those deep scans that tell us how Jack managed to get himself killed over the past two years tell me that.

Ianto sighed again and sat down on the floor, leaning against a shelving unit. It certainly hadn't felt like he'd broken any of those things at the time. Then again, that was really the point. He hadn't really been awake to feel any of that happening, had he?

Harry settles down across from him, leaning against the door to special archives. "I wasn't sure when it happened," Ianto says. "I thought I got really lucky and just left at that. Decided that it didn't matter."

"This was that time we were out weevil hunting, am I right?" asked Harry. "We lost contact with you for a few minutes and when you came back you said you'd banged your head on something and had been knocked out."

Ianto nodded. "I fell off a roof," he repeated. "It didn't really occur to me how much time had passed. I just woke up like I'd been sleeping, found nothing was wrong, and just went on from there. There were two roofs, you see, and I just assumed that I'd fallen off the shorter one. There was no way I would have survived falling off the taller roof."

"So you died that night?"

"Apparently." There clearly wasn't any other possibility. Not with those injuries. "I didn't even really notice it. I suspected it later but didn't bother telling anyone."

"Not even Jack?"

Ianto shook his head. "I didn't want to scare him and, like I said, I didn't think that anything serious had happened." That felt like a lie but Ianto didn't feel like elaborating any further.

Harry tapped his fingers on his knees. "I'll need to see you later then," he informed his patient as he rose to his feet. "You share some things with Jack but not others. I need to sort out what that means without asking you to die again to see if you come back."

"Much obliged."

Harry nodded and scarpered back up the stairs, leaving Ianto still sitting on the floor of his archives with his thoughts.

He had died three times. Once he'd come back by choice, the other two had been automatic for lack of a better term. He hadn't even noticed the second time. He'd known he'd certainly been unconscious but the fact that he died had been more of paranoid afterthought than a concrete suspicion.

So what did that mean? The questions from last night seemed to be officially distilled to one: was he like Jack or not? Was he immortal or did he have nine lives or something? Or was it eight now?

Okay, maybe it was more than one question. Same idea though.

"Were you ever going to tell me any of that?"

Of course Jack would have followed and listened. Of course he would have. He hoped Owen could see this. He'd teased him often enough about clinging to Jack like plastic wrap but he thought that Jack had outdone him this time.

"Tonight would have been when I would have done it," he answered without getting up or turning his head.

"That's not what I meant," Jack stated. "If Harry had never called you on it would you have ever told me anything?"

"Harry didn't call me on anything," Ianto snapped. "I didn't realise that I'd died. I'm sorry." The last bit came out as more of a scoff than an actual apology.

Jack appeared in front of him as livid as Ianto had ever seen him. "How can you not know when you're dying?"

"Have you ever died when you've been unconscious before, Jack?" Ianto challenged. "I know you have. I've been there more than once." He drew his knees up to rest his forehead on and growled. "I've only died once before and dying by poisonous gas is a pretty fucking obvious way to go. No one needed to tell me what was going on. Falling off a roof and thinking "oh shit" is not the same thing."

Jack obviously disagreed with that. "You never told me. You said there weren't going to be anymore secrets."

"It's not a secret if I didn't think anything happened!" Ianto exclaimed, outraged beyond all belief.

"You fell off a roof and didn't tell me! That's a secret to me!"

"Oh," Ianto huffed, seeing where this was going and not liking what he saw. "So what you're saying is that I should report to you every scratch and every little thing that pokes me? Is that it?" This attitude of Jack's about him and this job had been something that been bothering him for awhile now. He'd been ignoring it for the sake of peace but what was the point of that now.

Jack grumbled something about that not being it but it was far from convincing. Ianto pushed himself to his feet. "I'm not interested in you hovering, Jack," he said firmly. "I'm going to get hurt on the job and that's just the way it is."

"You aren't listening to me," Jack interjected. "I asked you last night if you'd ever died and come back before and you said you hadn't. You told Harry that you'd suspected it but you never told me."

"And you're not listening to me either," Ianto countered. "I didn't know that I had died. I didn't think anything major had happened."

"Denial doesn't suit you, Ianto Jones," Jack sneered. "Your suspicions are as good as most people's solid facts. You knew something had happened and you didn't tell me. You don't want to be like me and I don't blame you for that, but I'd have hoped that you'd still ask me about it. Or at least tell me that it happened." Jack turned on his heel and vanished up the staircase before Ianto could say anything else.

Everything Jack had said was true, Ianto had to admit that. He'd suspected what had happened that night, and it had been a mighty strong suspicion that he had done his best to shut up. He'd pulled it off and it came back and bit him in the arse, as he'd always sort of suspected it would. That did not excuse Jack's hovering though, not to him. Jack was eavesdropping on his conversation with Harry and was beyond concerned with his personal safety. He'd put up with it because he'd understood it. Now, several months after the fact, it was getting ridiculous.

He was in the wrong. He knew damn well he was in the wrong. That didn't change that he felt a little bit like a child being monitored than an equal partner in a relationship. Jack was probably watching him on the CCTV now. Ianto let out an irritated grunt made an obscene hand gesture at the corner where he knew the hidden camera was. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out the key card for special archives. There were some tunnels through there that would spit him out at the other end of the bay. This was probably the first time that he'd left Torchwood for the day without telling anyone but he felt he was more than justified. A little part of him told him that he was being a four year old about this, very much like Jack was being a four year old about this, but the best thing to do with children throwing tantrums was to let them have them and tire themselves out. That went for both him and Jack.

Ianto emerged from the tunnels, taking a deep breath of the fresh air and then made his way to the nearest bus stop. His car was at Torchwood and he badly wanted to clear as much distance between him and Jack as possible. He noted that he had left his mobile in the archives.

Normally being left without a mobile was a cause for deep concern. This time, however, he couldn't find it in himself to care that much about it. If Jack wanted to find him he'd just have to try a little harder.


	4. Chapter 4

"It's down here!" Gwen's voice echoed from down below. Her quick steps soon followed as she rejoined the main level of the hub. Jack growled and snatched Ianto's mobile from her hand without as much as a thank you. He quickly scanned through it. There were twelve missed calls, all from him, and all the text messages that were in the inbox were mostly from him too. These weren't booty calls either. Some of them certainly were but a lot were stupid things like "where are you?" or "you coming home now?" and the like. Stuff he never would have texted Ianto about before he...well before he'd died. Was he hovering as bad as Ianto seemed to think he was?

"Do I hover?" he asked Gwen. Better to get a response now and better to just spit out the question before he got a chance to change his mind.

"Yes," she said promptly. "If you're talking about Ianto, that is. I'm surprised he hasn't gone mad yet."

Mel joined the conversation from her station. "Maybe he has," she suggested. "He's been gone for four hours."

"What?" Jack yelped. "We only just noticed he was gone!"

Mel's report, as always, was painfully direct. "Three minutes after you shouted at him he made a gesture at the camera and then exited the Hub through special archives. He then boarded a bus. Local transit so don't worry too much."

"What was the gesture?" Harry asked as Jack moved to watch the footage. Mel demonstrated and Harry shrugged. It was something he'd seen directed at him from Mel at least once a week. "Could do worse, I guess."

"Get that bus number and track it," Jack ordered. He didn't care what gestures Ianto made at the camera. What he was more concerned about was the fact that Ianto was who knows where. Where the hell would he go on local transit? Somewhere behind all that questioning he noted that that request he'd made of Mel had come very close to a snap. He'd apologize later. He needed to locate Ianto. He needed to make sure…

"Belay that order."

Mel stopped typing immediately and pushed herself away from the desk. Harry gaped at the person who'd issued the order while Jack walked back to stand in front of the woman who'd overruled him. "Last I checked," Jack informed her. "I still gave the orders around here."

"Why do you want to find him?" Gwen demanded, folding her arms and fixing him with a judging stare that he knew far too well.

"He's left without his phone and without asking leave – "

Harry made a good imitation of the sound you heard on quiz shows when the answer was wrong. "One down, nine to go," he quoted. 'What's My Line' re-runs and Harry Olden should never have met.

"Stay out of it, Harry!" Jack snapped. Harry started but kept silent.

"Stay in it, Harry." Gwen countered coldly. "Wrong answer, Jack. Try again."

"What do you want me to say?" Jack was in no mood to play this game. Gwen was stepping over the line as usual "Mel, track that bus!"

Mel didn't budge.

"You want to find him so you can tell him off some more," Gwen answered for him. "Actually," she amended, "you want to find him because you're convinced that he's going to get killed or hurt or whatever if he's not in your sight. Then once you've found him you're going to tell him off all over again. You both need space and he knows that. So give him his time. He knows how to work a payphone if he needs you."

Jack had nothing to say to that, surprisingly. Gwen had always been adept at reading into people's feelings and she'd gotten nothing but better at since she'd become a mother. Pouty children and brooding adults had a lot in common, she'd said. He had to admit that he was embarrassed to think that Gwen might see him in the same light as her three year old daughter right now.

"Ianto's not free of blame on this either," she added. "He's throwing his own form of tantrum right now just the same way you're throwing one. His just happens to not involve yelling at everyone in the vicinity."

"He did yell at me!" Jack retorted indignantly.

Mel cleared her throat. "You yelled more than he did," she corrected. More tapping. "Sounds to me like either he was telling the truth or else he was holding on to because he didn't want to worry you." Her flaming read head stuck out to glare at him. "And why oh why would he think that instead of just telling you or asking you about it like you wanted him to?"

_Because I'd worry and hover and probably never let him outside again. _He started to say it out loud and caught himself halfway through the word 'worry.' The damage had been done already, even Harry was glaring at him now, and he had just admitted it to himself. He could almost see what would have happened. He'd overact, Ianto would try to rein him in and end up fighting back, and then lord knew what would have happened next. Probably this, he allowed. All Ianto had done was put it off a bit but he had been putting it off for a reason, whether it was to gather information or to keep the peace.

He'd never even considered Ianto's feelings on the matter, either today or in that theoretical happening. Come to think of it, he hadn't given too much thought to Ianto's feelings until several hours after the building collapse had killed him.

They'd vowed a new start but it seemed they'd both fallen into the old run of things pretty quickly.

"You going to give him his space now?" Gwen's voice had lost it's hard edge but that didn't take away the sting.

"Doesn't seem I have much of a choice, do I?" Jack stormed back up to his office, leaving his team in his wake. He may agree with them, he may understand that this wasn't Ianto's fault, but that didn't mean that he had to like it.

- - - - -

What the hell was he up here? The cab driver has certainly had his suspicions when he'd handed over his currency and gave his sister's address. Ianto was far too well dressed, at least in that driver's opinion, to be headed up that way. Maybe he thought that he was out on government business.

He and Rhiannon really didn't have the sort of sibling relationship where they shared troubles. If Rhiannon had something on her mind she was far more likely to phone up one of her girlfriends the same way Ianto would chat to Torchwood. The only time their worries and concerns crossed were when family was involved, and that was few and far between as they were the only Joneses left in the country. When their parents had been alive, before Rhiannon had met Johnny and Ianto had left for London, they had had that sort of close relationship. Rhiannon had always tried to get that relationship back, her efforts had strengthened recently for obvious reasons, but Ianto found himself to be rather unreceptive to it. It was unrealistic. He couldn't rant about his job to his sister. He couldn't bitch about Jack's antic today to her either, she hadn't even met him yet and he didn't want her to judge him too harshly. They'd cool their heels and sort this out later. That was for sure.

If that was the case then why was he here? He could talk to Rhiannon about the whole failing to die thing if he wanted to. She did know that he had died once before after all...

Ianto stopped his thought process and rapped on the door, hoping that it was just her home. He really didn't want to deal with Johnny or the kids at the moment. To his relief he heard Rhiannon shouting for him to let himself in and he opened the door to an empty hallway. "Who is it?" she sang.

"Your brother," he replied. He snorted as he heard the sound of a pan dropping and then quick, small feet running toward him.

"I didn't think you'd actually stop by ever again without my ringing you!" Rhiannon squealed as she appeared in the hallway and pulled him into a warm hug. "You on your lunch or something?"

"Something like that," Ianto muttered as he was released. "I was in the neighbourhood."

She took Ianto's wrist and glanced at his watch. "It's three in the afternoon," she said sternly and then smirked. "You cut out early didn't you?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Thought you loved that job. It being a bit of a beast today?" Ianto nodded his head as he allowed his sister to steer him into the sitting room where there was already some tea out. "Just poured myself some," she explained. "Diane was over earlier. It's still warm I swear."

What Ianto really wanted was a strong cup of coffee. The teabags were still in the pot, he observed, so hopefully the Earl Grey that his sister preferred was strong enough for him to deal with. He poured himself a cup and settled himself onto the couch. It wasn't as bold and offensive as a cup of black coffee but the triple steeped tea was close enough.

"So how are things?" Rhiannon asked as she settled into a seat across from him.

Small talk. Ianto knew there had been a reason he had avoided all the family reunions. How are things? How best to go about answering that question…

"Alright," Rhiannon butted in. "I assume that things are crap. Now are you going to tell me what's wrong? That's why you're here isn't it?"

Mothers were scary people, he decided. It was like the second they gave birth they suddenly possessed extreme telepathic abilities. It was really quite bothersome. He had to tell her something now.

He wasn't ready to tell her that he might be immortal, he decided. There wasn't any evidence for that yet, though dying twice and coming back twice was certainly fairly solid evidence in favour of it, and he wasn't ready to even consider that road fully until it was proven. "Nothing's the matter," he told her with his best smile and best shocked and/or offended laugh. "I cut out of work early and I happened to be around."

Rhiannon raised an eyebrow at that but she knew when not to push. There was a bit of disappointment behind the resignation in her eyes, though. Ianto felt a little guilty but still kept his mouth shut. "Okay," she sighed. "Johnny and the kids should be home soon. Would you like to stay for supper?"

Ianto was surprised to find that he did.

- - - - - - - - -

Jack ate his pizza in silence in his office. Really there was no reason for anyone to still be at the Hub right now. Things were extremely quiet, something to be taken advantage of on nights like this. Normally everyone would be out of here so fast that they had to have beaten speed records several times over when this happened. Jack was only staying put because he had no desire to go home without Ianto and he gathered the others were there to make sure he didn't off and brood on a roof top or something.

He tapped up the CCTV and watched him and Ianto yelling again. Did he really sound that angry? No wonder Ianto had stormed off after all that. He would have done the same thing if situations had been reversed. Actually he had stormed off. He'd been the one to leave the conversation first after all.

Why was he so worried? There was no way he could be this worried about a person and still draw breath. No way. He had some experience in relationships after all. He'd never smothered any of them quite this way before. He'd been married once and he'd never fretted so much about them before. Never wanted to wrap them in cotton wool and protect them from everything. For God's sake Ianto had burnt himself making coffee not long ago and Jack had been there the second he'd heard the yelp. Ianto had naturally been less than impressed and all he'd done was raise an eyebrow. 'What'? was the question embedded in that gesture. The ensuing sigh and shooing gestures had meant 'I'm fine, calm down, go back to work.' Of course he had been fine. No one died from spilt coffee.

He'd watched Ianto die once before. That had to be the difference. When he'd lost the others that had been the end; he'd grieved, he'd moved on but none of them had just popped up like a weed afterwards. Jack wanted to get things right this time, wanted to appreciate Ianto and wanted him safe so he wouldn't have to experience his death that way again. He knew he would have to eventually, but he wanted to delay for as long as he could. It was a renewed contest against time and the Grim Reaper it seemed. They'd stolen Ianto from him, Ianto had escaped them, and now Jack's job was to keep them as far away from him for as long as possible.

Seven months later, here they were again. Ianto had died again and Jack still couldn't decide whether this death was worse than the one before it. It really didn't matter in the end because Ianto had bounced back again, and this time within five minutes instead of three years. There was also something in between, he now knew, and when he went back to check out those phone records they'd lost contact with Ianto for about seven minutes. He'd probably been dead for about five minutes that time as well, probably had to give him at least two minutes to process what the hell had gone on.

To be an immortal was to be alone and to hope that Ianto was one as well was a) extremely optimistic and b) extremely selfish. Jack would not wish this curse on anyone. It was nothing short of Hell to watch friends and family die, to have to create elaborate ways to explain it away, and to have just stay. Everyone got tired of life eventually; people were designed to die and to know when it was time. The sad part of this was that Jack didn't know if he was tired of life or just stuck in neutral. Working for Torchwood energized him, the team energized him, Ianto energized him, engaging with the world was how he managed to love life and enjoy these people for the limited time he had them. That lesson had come at a price and he didn't want Ianto to have to learn it.

Ianto was much more one to live in the moment now, death had certainly freed him in many ways, but he was immortal that was a whole new ball game. He'd watched friends and lovers die before, so that was nothing new, but to watch _everyone _go.

They would have each other though. That would be a first for Jack and a relief that he couldn't find words to express.

This was disgusting. Ianto's immortality would be a curse to Ianto and a blessing to Jack. If this wasn't fucked up he didn't know what was. A soft knock disturbed his thoughts. He waved Gwen in, who settled into the chair across from him.

"Feeling better?"

Jack nodded. "I'm sorry for earlier," he said earnestly. He'd apologize to Mel and Harry later but he'd been the most offensive to Gwen.

Gwen shrugged. "Don't worry about it, we all get it." She looked quizzically at the slice of pizza that Jack was working on. "How old is that?" He complexion began to go slightly green. The last time we got pizza with peppers was when Harry was off sick and that was…"

"Don't even think about it," Jack interrupted. "You'll make yourself sick if you actually figure it out."

Gwen closed her mouth and took his advice. "Okay, want to come to mine for dinner? Rhys is cooking and Tegan is starting to ask after you."

Rhys was a fantastic cook. Jack had told him on more than one occasion that he really should be out doing Gordon Ramsay's job instead of managing deliveries and catching aliens. Rhys said he enjoyed cooking too much to turn it into work and then usually threw something at him. Last time it had been a handful of shrimp tails.

He automatically reached for his mobile and had hit the speed dial for Ianto's mobile when he remembered that it was sitting on his desk. Gwen sighed. "If it helps you any, he's at Rhiannon's. Mel checked it out in case we needed to call him for reinforcements." She didn't say whether it was for work reinforcements or Jack reinforcements but it really didn't matter.

That eased things and, surprisingly, he didn't feel like rushing down there. He was too tired to deal with whatever outrage Ianto would certainly have over his butting in where he wasn't wanted.

"Come on," Gwen said, coming around the desk and hauling him to his feet. "And give me that pizza and any that's left lying around. It's going right to biohazard."


	5. Chapter 5

It had been a simple slip with a knife that had started it all.

Nothing got Rhiannon running faster than a drop of blood. You'd have thought that she'd be used to it with having two children who were active enough outdoors. That had never been the case with Rhiannon, Ianto had more than enough memories of her rushing for peroxide and other instruments of torture whenever he'd skinned his knees as a child. Probably making up for what their mother should have been doing but was often too drunk and lethargic to do anything about it or even care. He remembered slowly hiding his injuries from Rhiannon just to avoid seeing her pale, hearing her yelp, and then watching her run for a first aid kit. A habit that had followed him into adulthood, as could clearly be seen by the events of today. It wasn't something that he was going to change though. If he had had a moment he would have hidden this one as well.

After Mica and David had returned home and everyone had chatted for a bit, Rhiannon had left to get dinner sorted. Johnny was due within the hour and he'd had his own problems at work so Rhiannon wanted to have it waiting for him instead of having him help. Ianto had decided to help out; he'd always felt like he should help with meal preparation whenever he was at someone's house for dinner. He'd been chased out of Rhys's kitchen often enough on the nights he cooked, and Ianto had certainly chased people out of his own, but it was something he always attempted. Rhiannon, actually, was very pleased for his help.

Then _it_ had happened.

He'd been cutting up some apple slices for the kids, David had braces now so it was hard going eating an apple as is, and he'd missed the apple. It had hurt for maybe a second, and it was certainly stinging a bit now, but it was just a slight sliver of skin off his index finger. He'd hissed and dropped the knife and Rhiannon had come over and then had reacted exactly Ianto had expected her to.

"It's fine!" He'd shouted at her quickly retreating back as he'd grabbed a paper towel and pressed it down on the cut. "It's just a scratch!"

There was some response but it was so near frenzy that Ianto hadn't understood a word of it. "It's not even bleeding anymore!" he'd assured while freeing finger to see if that was in fact true.

It was more than true. Not only had his finger stopped bleeding, the blood was actually _gone _to be correct, and actual incision and corresponding flap of skin had been healed. It was as if the event had never happened.

Ianto's first thought was: It's getting serious now.

When Rhiannon had returned he'd refused to let her look at it but did take the adhesive bandage she was waving in front of him and stuck it on. Hopefully she wouldn't be looking to see if it bled through or not. Dinner was prepared and served without a hitch after that.

Ianto kept to himself through the meal. Lost in thought for the most part, and this was to the frustration of anyone who tried to engage him in conversation. He'd never really given the Immortal Theory real serious thought before but here he was, a cut healed in about ten seconds after two unplanned returns from the dead. He remembered when he'd first met Jack, after subduing that weevil in the park, noticing a slash on Jack's face that soon vanished. The case here was exactly the same.

Say he was immortal, he allowed. Say that he was precisely like Jack. A fixed point in time that would stay here as long as the universe existed. His stomach turned at the thought. Turned and felt like pack of bricks had suddenly appeared in it.

Living with the reality of watching his teammates die was something he was used to. It had happened to him more than once and though it wasn't something that he would ever get used to, he'd know to off himself if ever did, it was something he lived with. Equally likely was that he'd die in the line of duty first. That had also already happened. Either way it was something he'd lived with. They'd go first or he would.

Now, sitting here amongst his family that he really hadn't taken the time to know, it him exactly what living forever would mean. Rhiannon, Johnny, and the kids did not leave dangerous lives or have dangerous jobs but one day they wouldn't be here. He'd stand at their funerals, all of theirs, and likely would also be there for funerals of David and Mica's children and partners. Maybe even the ones after if he kept contact up well enough. The same thing would happen to Gwen, Rhys and Tegan. Mel and Harry. Andy, Martha, Lachlan...

If their jobs didn't get them time eventually would. Ianto would be there, would have to stay, every time. Jack would be there, at least he hoped Jack would be there, but even that didn't quell the terror of a world that would never end for him. Of a world that would increasingly hold less and less for him to fight for and live for.

"It's always me, every single _fucking_ time. I go on and all of you die and it's always my fault."

Jack's voice. He had been at the time Jack had said them but he'd heard them all the same. That was six months after he'd gone. While he took issue with the statement of fault, the rest he thought he had understood. Now, thinking about what exactly meant, the impact of that statement hit him as hard as that building had.

It would always be him that walked away. Always. Always. It sounded so romantic until you were actually placed in that situation. Always was now, officially, the most terrifying word in existence. No one could live that long. No one _should_ live that long.

"You okay, love?"

"I'm alright," he managed to force out. "Just a little bit of a stomach ache." If always was the most terrifying word in existence then that was the biggest understatement in existence.

"Want something for it?" Johnny asked. "Your overbearing sister here has a lovely collection of antacids."

"It will pass." It had better pass, he thought. If eternity was his destiny he had no desire to have this in the pit of his stomach for that entire time.

How did Jack bear it if that was the case?

- - -

Their flat was empty when Jack returned to it, and that was surprising considering that he'd purposely stayed awhile at Gwen and Rhys's. They'd eaten, chatted in the sitting room for a bit, and had even watched a bit of the latest Pixar film with Tegan. It was now approaching nine and there was no sign of the man. Ianto had never spent the night away from his flat while they were living together. He'd certainly kicked Jack out before but that had been when the flat was still just Ianto's. Whenever they'd had an argument they'd either still gone to bed, just kept to their own sides, or there was maybe two occasions when Ianto had moved to the couch. No one had kicked anyone out of the flat or refused to come back.

He could always phone Rhiannon, he allowed. Ianto had her number somewhere but he hesitated to actually do it. He didn't want to piss Ianto off more than he already was. Maybe he needed time to think, maybe he needed time just for the sake of it. He might have an abundance of it and it was quite possible that he…

Something shifted. The room didn't spin so much as turn slightly and things became darker. Soon enough he was in The Dark. He knew this place well but knew that there was no reason for him to be there right now. He'd just been standing in the kitchen for god's sake…

_Jack!_

Ianto's voice. Had he managed to kill himself, again? Ianto was turning more jeopardy friendly than Rose Tyler had been.

_Jack! Come on, you have to be here too. Jack!_

"I'm right here!" he shouted back. "Right over here!" He waved his hands to the figure that was approaching him. Definitely Ianto's silhouette, not a doubt in his mind about that. What surprised him was that the Ianto before him was wearing a suit that he knew for a fact Ianto no longer owned and had a harsh cut across one cheek.

This wasn't Ianto. At least not this time period's Ianto anyway. This was Ianto in September 2009. Right after he'd died.

_All I want is two seconds!_ Ianto was shouting, beginning to sound desperate_. Two bloody seconds to say good bye properly. Is that so much?_

Tosh had mentioned during the initial planning stages of Ianto's resurrection that he'd looked for Jack after he'd gone. He'd never questioned it and he'd wished that he'd heard them. Now he would give anything to respond.

_Jack! _ Ianto shouted again, cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing loud enough to wake the dead. Jack grimaced at the metaphor.

Finally there was a response. _Ianto!_

That musical voice. If Martha Jones was the voice of a nightingale then Toshiko Sato was the voice of a sparrow. She appeared from behind Jack, waving her hands as well as she stepped in front of him and waited for Ianto to turn. _Ianto!_ she urged. _It's me!_

He finally did turn. His expression turned from desperate, to surprised, to delight. He rushed toward Tosh and pulled her into the most impressive bear hug he had ever seen, he even managed to pick Tosh up and whirl her around for good measure. Usually it had been Tosh who had been the more enthusiastic hugger of the pair. They spoken to each other, too softly for Jack to hear, but when Tosh was released finally Ianto was still looking at her like she was a miracle. _So good to see you_ he told her, his tone letting her know that the words were an understatement.

_Good to see you too_, she answered in the same tone as she gently extracted herself from Ianto's grip. She jerked her head to her right. _Come on_. She laughed at Ianto's raised eyebrow. _Did you really think there was nothing past this?_

_All evidence seemed to suggest so!_ He reminded her. _Besides, I'm not going anywhere without saying good bye to Jack. Properly, I mean_. Was that a blush? Could ghosts blush?

Tosh sighed. _He's probably gone back by now. And even if he hasn't there's no way you would be able to see him_

_Why not?_

_Dead people who are still in the dark can't see each other. I can see you and you can see me because I've been past it_. She shrugged her shoulders at Ianto's unvoiced request for more information.

_What about hearing? _Ianto asked, hopeful.

_Not sure_, Tosh admitted.

Ianto threw his hands up in a 'then there you have it' gesture. _I am not leaving until I get to say a better goodbye then 'In a thousand years time you won't remember me.'_ The sentence was delivered with deadly severity and then he sat down on whatever passed for ground facing away from Tosh. _He's bound to die again at some point and I'll be right here when he does._

_In the dark?_ That ominous growling made its appearance after that question. Jack felt his skin crawl. Ianto flinched but Tosh did not.

_I seem to have a shockingly free agenda,_ he snapped.

Tosh rolled her eyes, muttered something to herself, and then sat down next to Ianto. The two friends sat quietly together, both lost in their own ways and Jack wanted nothing more than to embrace them both. Somewhere he recognized that he was glad that he hadn't found anyone in the dark before. This was too depressing for words.

_You know_, Tosh said after a moment. _I was hoping that my reunion with you would be a little more cheerful._

_I wasn't expecting any reunion to be honest_, Ianto confessed quietly.

Tosh playfully nudged him and gave him a small, knowing smile. _You of all people should know not to underestimate people_. She rested her hand on his. _Look. No matter how long you sit here you're not going to be able to see him. You're going to have to wait until he gets out of here himself one day._

_The man is fucking IMMORTAL! _Ianto reminded her harshly.

_No saying he won't pop out on our end one day_, Tosh said in a mock chiding tone. _Forever's a long time to die. _She stood up and held out her hand. _Come on. You won't even notice time pass on our end._

'_Our' end?_

_Owen's there too, of course. Don't make that face! He'll be pleased to see you too, I promise!_

Ianto took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. As he informed Tosh that he doubted that very much he gave one last look into the black and, for a moment, his eyes seemed to lock with Jack's. Then the two figures turned and the black turned back into the kitchen.

Jack shook out his head and went straight for a glass of water. It was three glasses before he allowed himself to acknowledge what he had just happened had actually happened. He'd certainly had his share of flashbacks but he'd never been subjected to someone else's flashbacks. Was Ianto thinking of that right now? Jack was sceptical of that. He had been tested for telepathy and empathy and all that stuff back at the Time Agency but he hadn't scored all that high. Not high enough for this sort of thing. He'd never had anything like this happen to him before and Ianto didn't remember all that much from being dead.

Or that was what he told everyone. He'd only told a few things, mostly experiences with Tosh and Owen but he'd never mentioned those first moments. Jack had never wanted to push and he hadn't been all that sure he'd wanted to know anyway. Now he knew and he was more confused and concerned about how he knew more than the knowing itself. He had promised himself that he wouldn't try and find Ianto tonight. That he'd let him come back in his own time. This, however, changed things. Jack felt he had all the justification in the world to give Rhiannon Davies a ring. It was about time they'd met after all.

- - -

Ianto was starting to realise why rooftops seemed to be Jack's favourite place to be. It was its own kind of peace. Certainly it was much easier to focus your thoughts when you were so high up in the air and being bombarded by chilling winds. The thing that Ianto appreciated right now was that he was isolated from anyone who could walk in on what he was about to try next.

Part of him recognized that this was the stupidest idea he'd ever had since he'd stashed Lisa in the Torchwood basement all those years ago. Doing the three things he planned to do next would do one of two things: tell him something that he already knew or send him into the great beyond permanently. It was a risk but it was a risk he was more than willing to take to solidify his situation.

The slip with the kitchen knife at had yielded one result. The first order of business was to reproduce that result. He carefully pulled out the knife he'd taken from Rhiannon's and gently ran his index finger around the edge until he felt the sting and sharp pain. Throwing the knife on the ground he stared at his finger, doing nothing to stop the bleeding, daring it to give an encore performance.

It did. Ianto watched in some detached wonder as the blood was reabsorbed into his skin and the cut disappeared in seconds. Now for stage two.

He set his watch timer, shrugged off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and methodically slit his wrists with the same knife. Ianto had to snort a little at that. There were so many times over his career at Torchwood that he'd always wanted to do just this. In those fantasies there was usually alcohol involved as well, though. He'd always talked himself out it, always reasoned out that this was not going to solve anything. Ending your life did not make the events go away, it made you go away, and that was not what anyone really wanted. Even Lisa hadn't made him suicidal; it had made him want to forget everything. Thank Heaven and Earth and the stars above for Toshiko Sato.

He set himself down against a chimney, shut his eyes, and waited. The end would come soon enough...

When he opened his eyes again, and noted the timer saying that eight minutes and forty eight seconds had passed, Ianto was not convinced that he'd even died. That didn't matter so much for this stage of the experiment though. His wrists were, of course, unscathed but his trousers hadn't been so lucky. Neither had his suit jacket, which had somehow gotten in the way of things. Probably thanks to the wind. Usually he'd be more upset over the loss of a good suit but this was far beyond any sort of repair.

Two experiments in favour of this theory. Now time for the third.

He stood in just his trousers, shirt, and waistcoat on the ledge looking over the abandoned street. Nothing in his way, no one to walk by or hear anything, just solid pavement and an almost complete recreation of the incident while he was weevil hunting. This one decided everything. It would have been a gun to the head if he'd had it on him. Not at all standard procedure for an employee in this field, but this entire day had been not standard procedure.

Ianto shivered violently as a gust of wind came by that almost threw him off the roof. He rubbed his hands together. Better get this over with then. The third experiment – the third trial – would either end it all or tell him that it had only just begun.

He took a breath and jumped. He hadn't even started to fall yet when a familiar voice shouted "No you don't!" and two arms caught him. He was quickly hauled him back onto the roof and into an embrace. It was only then that he knew for sure that it was Jack.

"I know what you're feeling," Jack told him raggedly. "I know you don't want this. I tried this myself a few times, but it only makes it worse! Don't put yourself through that."

He hugged Jack back. "It's not what you think," Ianto told him. "I was just testing it out."

Jack pulled back in shock. "Testing it out?" He asked incredulously. "Like a super power?"

Ianto snorted. "No," he corrected. "I needed the reality to properly sink in. This seemed the best way to do it."

Jack looked at him in puzzlement then sat down on the ledge of the roof, back to the open air, and gestured for Ianto to sit down beside him. Ianto did as he was told and allowed Jack to wrap an arm around his back and hold him close to him. "How did you find me?" he asked after a moment.

"Phoned your sister," Jack replied. "Then tracked the cab you took."

Ianto didn't care much about the last bit. His mouth dropped open. "You called Rhiannon?"

"Yeah. Don't worry she still wants to meet me properly. Oh, and I'm supposed to phone her when I find you. You have her worried apparently."

"Rhiannon always worries," Ianto muttered. "She can find something to worry about even if I'm sitting with her in an empty room."

Jack sucked in a breath and then slowly let it out. "That tends be a side effect of resurrection," he explained. "That and she loves you so she's always going to worry. Get used to it."

"I seem to have the time," he agreed as he looked down at the carnage around him.

"Yeah," Jack nodded. "It would seem so." He rose to his feet and surveyed the carnage around him: the ruined jacket, the bloody knife, the somehow spotless wrist watch. "I'm going to have to get used to this." The wind blew Ianto's jacket into Jack's face. Ianto chuckled softly and peeled it off, wrapping it over his own arms instead.

"You'll never get used to it," Ianto found himself admitting. It was something he had sworn he would never admit to Jack, partly because he hadn't wanted him to know how deeply he felt about him but mostly because he knew Jack relied on him being there for him when he came around. Being the anchor that held him to this world. "Every time you go down I always wonder if that's it. If you've finally run out of chances."

"Fixed point in time," Jack sighed. "I don't think I'm going anywhere until the universe does."

"Doesn't stop me worrying. Get used to it."

Jack struggled and failed to hold back a laugh. "It seems I've got the time as well," he smiled.

Ianto smiled and laughed as well. Perhaps things wouldn't be so bad. Forever would be hell on your own, he knew that because Jack knew that. Forever with someone else, forever with a hand to hold, just might be bearable. Might. There was precious room for hope in his life but he had to hope for that. He'd go mad otherwise. He stole a glance at Jack and, when Jack looked over at him, he knew he was thinking the same thing.

"I have no right to be this happy," Jack whispered. "You're condemned to hell with me. I shouldn't be so happy."

"I draw your attention to the 'with me' qualifier," Ianto said dryly. "I can live with that, however long that may be." He rose to his feet and offered a hand to Jack. "Besides," he grunted as he pulled Jack up. "We still don't know how this happened. For all I know I agreed to this before I came back the first time."

"Speaking of that!" Jack started. "There's something I have to ask you."

"What? About agreeing to immortality while dead?"

"No, about being dead. I'll tell you back at the Hub. We may need to run some tests."

Ianto grumbled his annoyance but he allowed Jack to drag him off to the SUV. Whatever Jack had in mind couldn't be anything worse than Harry had already suggested. It wasn't like it was going to kill him anyway.

In the meantime, Ianto reckoned he'd better ring Rhiannon.


	6. Chapter 6

"Holy shit, it's Eye Candy!"

Just when you thought that you'd sorted out all the shit that had come your way an even bigger heap of it had to be dumped in your lap. Or, in this case, vortex manipulator-ed into your workplace. Ianto was in no mood to deal with this mess.

He had only just processed that Jack had received a flashback that should have been headed his way; he'd been filled when they'd stopped at their flat to allow Ianto to get into something less bloodstained and to ring Rhiannon and calm her down. The strange thing the whole flashback thing was that Ianto had never given much thought to the event, or really even remembered it properly, until Jack had told him about it. He knew that he had looked for Jack in the dark and he knew that Tosh had found him but the other finer details had only come to his realization as Jack had told him. Truly bizarre, that. Bizarre was another thing that he thought he'd gotten used to. Apparently not.

That whole mess had to go on hold for the time being. Right now they had to deal with the very real presence of Captain John Hart lounging on their couch with a bouquet of roses on the floor and eating what appeared to be a salad. Ah. Tonight would be Harry's night to buy dinner in case of a late night, Ianto remembered. Harry was trying to get them all on diets. It was also inaccurate to say that John Hart was lounging. Mel was standing not five feet away from him with an UNIT issued assault rifle levelled at his head and Gwen was there as well with her own pistol. Harry appeared to have either vanished or was watching from a distance.

"He dropped in five minutes ago," Gwen informed them without moving a muscle. "We sent Harry after you."

"I did not drop in," John interrupted as he rose to his feet. "I appeared in! Also would someone please explain to my why Eye Candy is here?"

"He has a name," Jack barked. "Use it."

"Fine," John drawled sarcastically as he stepped toward Ianto. Ianto didn't flinch but the girls both cocked their weapons. "You're dead, _Ianto_," he said. "You're very nearly four years dead." John's eyes at first appeared to be undressing him but Ianto soon noticed that it wasn't lust that clouded the other man's eyes but bafflement. It was someone trying to come to terms with what was in front of them.

"I came back," Ianto said simply. There was no need to go into more detail.

"When?"

"January."

"This past January?"

At Ianto's affirmative nod, John let out an impressed whistle. Ianto rolled his eyes. John then tossed the bouquet of roses at Jack, who caught them only because the thorns were on a collision course with his eyeballs. "Well, that's one part of my trip that's become irrelevant," he huffed. "Part one of the trip being to see if you were interested in having another go, Jack."

Jack eyes burned as red as the roses. "You're serious?"

"I gathered that nearly four years was enough time to have a reasonable conversation with you on the subject." John rambled on with a half hearted apologetic gesture at Ianto. "Also figured you might have been looking for a distraction."

The roses were thrown on the floor and Jack was on top of John and damn near snarling. Ianto, and Harry, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air, had to pull Jack off the other man. "Never!" Jack roared. "Never in any timeline!"

"Can't go making statements like that now can we?" John chided as he dusted his red coat off. He looked over at Harry with appreciation. "Hello there. Harry was it?"

Mel's gun was at John's temple and her hand on his arm with so much force that even John was wincing. Somewhere Ianto knew that that the odds for an eventual Harry/Mel relationship were tipping more toward the realm of probability. He knew possession when he saw it. He also knew it when he heard it as Mel coldly ordered him to get out.

"What about the other reason for my coming here?"

"You heard her," Jack said just as coldly.

John sighed and relaxed in Mel's grip. "Look," he began in a tone of voice that seemed to herald honesty. Ianto pulled back behind Jack a bit, casually making his way for Harry's obliquely offered pistol. "I'm sorry about the sex thing. I have a problem and I figured you lot could help. Now considering you have a dead man here you might be even more useful than I thought."

Mel didn't make any move to release him or even look at Jack. Gwen did look over, waiting for the order. Jack looked at Ianto from the corner of his eye and Ianto offered a subtle nod to accompany the steady expression he hoped he had. John had helped them out before, when they'd lost Tosh and Owen. If hadn't been for him Jack would still be buried under Cardiff and there would be no Torchwood. Obviously something had happened while he had been dead for Mel and Gwen to have leapt to the guns straight away but Ianto grudgingly had to admit that he at least owed John something. Listening to the man wasn't a huge sacrifice.

Jack nodded at Gwen who lowered her gun. Mel did the same as she released John's arm and stepped behind, ready to pounce again if she was needed.

John rubbed his arm hard and whimpered a bit. "She's new," he observed, jerking his head toward Mel. "Guard dog?"

"John Hart," Jack introduced stiffly, "meet Mel Telson, our tech expert."

John stared at Mel, forgetting to bitch about the omission of the 'Captain' moniker. "Blimey," he breathed. "You've got some might in you for a little computer nerd."

Mel responded by cocking her rifle again. John sat down on the couch and gestured for people to sit around. Gwen and Jack took the chairs on the outside of the couch, Harry and Ianto dragged their station chairs over while Mel perched next to John with her rifle across her lap. John looked at Jack pleadingly for some sort of deliverance from her but Jack's face was stony.

"Can I ask what the hell you did to get everyone here this pissed at you?" Ianto asked. The entire team, including Mel, gave him shocked stares. "What?" Ianto asked irritably. "Last I saw him was after the Grey mess, remember? He was alright then."

"Christmas 2011?" Harry asked, incredulous. "You don't remember that mess?"

"That wasn't my fault!" John assured him.

Ianto rolled his eyes at John, Harry and everyone else. "You'll have to forgive me but I was _dead_ at the time so, please, explain what 'Christmas 2011' is."

"John dropped in for a visit in Christmas 2011 with some K'eygs," Jack informed him, eyes fixed on a more than uncomfortable John. There had to be a little more than that, Ianto thought as he waited for Jack to continue. K'eygs were essentially harmless little bugs that helped curb the weevil population. Owen had found some in storage once, some time before Gwen had joined up, and it seemed that everyone had been much happier for the three months that the Weevils had been less aggressive and more prone to just hang out in their sewers fascinated with these bugs. Fascinated and unaffected as these little things ate them from head to toe one little bit at a time.

So what was wrong with John showing up with K'eygs? Jack couldn't seem to continue and, for the first time, Ianto noticed the special hardness in Gwen's eyes. He hadn't seen that since that time Rhys had been killed briefly. K'eygs had no interest in humans though and he was sure he would have heard a tale from Rhys about battle scars from the thing if he had. What else did K'eygs do aside from mellow out and kill Weevils?

"They weren't quite right," Harry supplied. "Someone had altered them. Played around with the genetics...they wouldn't go near the weevils. They went right for the children."

The image of children stopping in the street chanting 'we are coming' was replaced by children toying around with bugs in their hands while they were being feasted on. Tegan. They must have gone after Tegan. It might have been a night when Gwen had had her at the hub. Ianto looked over at Gwen, who gave him a gracious nod without turning from John. It was a mess, they'd said, which meant John had let them lose and they had run rampant through the city.

"I didn't know someone had fucked with them," John said, angry it seemed at having to repeat himself. "I wouldn't have brought them down if they had! What do you take me for?" He waved his hands. "Don't answer that."

"You could have at least stayed and helped!" Gwen snapped. "We had a city in chaos and there were only Jack and Harry out there."

Ah, Ianto realised. Mel hadn't been hired yet. Gwen would certainly have been with Tegan. Lachlan and Andy would have been sucked in through their own jobs along with Martha and Lois. No relief staff. No one to call.

John growled. "I know, okay, but I can't change it. I'm sorry about it and I'm assuming your daughter's okay, yeah?"

"That's beside the point," Gwen argued.

"Yeah!" John agreed. "The point here is that I have a creepy Welsh ghost stalking me and I want her gone! Can I get a bit of help over here with that? Dead man, any input?"

Jack looked ready so snap again and Ianto just knew it was the nickname thing. "Jack," he warned softly. He didn't say it but this was how the hovering always started. He'd get protective or annoyed on Ianto's behalf and things would go downhill from there. Normally Jack would ignore him but this time, he backed off. Ianto asked John to explain himself fully.

"And here I thought that one was the interrogator," John said, thumb jerked at Gwen. He considered Ianto for a moment again. Ianto couldn't bear to look away from it but he knew everyone else was uncomfortable. Everyone was ready to leap on John the moment Ianto gave any sort of signal. "You've come back a different man, Ianto Jones," John mused as he leaned on his knees toward him. "Oh you're just as pretty and witty and all that other fun stuff you were before but the core of you has changed. Something more..."

"Menacing," Ianto finished for him. He prided himself on keeping his voice level and not devolving into growls like Jack had. He knew damn well that he'd changed. Jack and Gwen certainly had marked the differences as well. He'd both mellowed out as well as hardened a little. He liked it. He liked not being pushed over and underestimated. He was still surprising people and he was taking a perverse pleasure in surprising John. "Now what were you-"

This time Ianto was interrupted by John leaping up on the sofa with a yell and trying to sit up on top of it. It looked like he was trying to get through the wall. The team photo was knocked off its place and saved from destruction by the quick reflexes of Mel.

"There she is!" John screamed in terror. "Right over there! Can you see her?"

Ianto followed the panicked eyes to Gwen's station. Perched on her chair was a waif like young woman in a white nightdress with long dark hair and huge blue eyes. She reminded Ianto of how Gwen might look if she stopped eating and refused to go outdoors. At the same time, however, she also elicited images of that creepy girl from "The Ring" films. She was also damn near transparent. Ianto got up walked toward her, ignoring John's warning cries. "Don't fuck with her, dead man! Don't do it."

The girl-woman looked over at John with an expression of love and longing then back at Ianto with confusion. "Are you...?" she began and then stopped. It seemed she had forgotten her question. It wasn't scary at all until her eyes hardened along with her gaze. "Get away," she quietly snarled at him. "You're not him." Then she vanished as though she'd never been there at all.

After staring at the empty chair for a few moments, and after hearing John relax back into the couch, he asked the first important question. "Who else saw her?"

Everyone answered in the affirmative. Interesting. Ianto had been expecting Mel to see her; she so far was the only person on the team who had seen a ghost without the aid of the amplifier. "Clearly?" he asked.

That changed things again. Only he and John had seen her clearly. Jack and the others had seen her as an image fading in and out. "Sort of like looking at someone wearing a perception filter," Jack explained to John. "You know they're there but something is making you look away and not notice them."

Ianto didn't really know what that meant but John accepted that. "It explains a great many things," he admitted. "I was beginning to think I was insane as I thought that the girl was pretty fucking obvious."

She was, Ianto had to admit that, but he just couldn't for the life of him figure out why she was caught in his wake like this. She was drawn to John and either didn't notice or became enraged at the presence of anything that wasn't John.

"Who was she?" Gwen asked. "What was her name?"

John sighed. "Her name is Moira," he said in an almost sarcastic tone of voice. "Moira Stewart, actually, and she was very close to becoming Moira Hart."


	7. Chapter 7

"Moira was your fiancée?" Harry sputtered. "What deluded person would ever consent to marry you?"

"What deluded person would ever consider even shagging you?" John retorted and threw a knowing smirk at Mel. "Care to answer that?" he asked her.

The punch flew fast and furious and Ianto found him and Gwen working to keep John back while Jack held retrained Mel and whispered something in her ear that made her stop. "Mind getting to the point, John?" Jack demanded as they all settled back down. Mel once again sitting next to John but John skirting far to the other side of the couch.

"Moira's from 19th century London," he explained. "Not my favourite place to be so that's not where I met her. She was visiting her sister in Cardiff and got sucked up by the Rift. I'm sure you lot know what happens in most cases."

Gwen nodded reverently. They all did. "I was rolling in on some residual energy," John continued, "and she literally smashed into me and wound up in the Vegas galaxy with me."

It meant nothing to Ianto but Jack's eyes seemed ready to pop out of his head. "Please don't tell me," he prayed in the voice of the last sane person in the universe, "that you took a 19th century woman to the Vegas galaxy."

John winked. "It takes a lot to get them to lose that morality but, when you manage it, it is _so_ worth it."

Ianto shook his head back and forth to clear that mental image. He didn't know who Moira Stewart was but he knew enough that she was too good for the likes of John Hart. Too good for him and too good for whatever he did to her. "I take it the galaxy has those wedding chapels they have in America?"

"You bet. I was working on getting her to one of those."

"Why?" Gwen demanded. "You certainly had a few things to say about my marrying Rhys last time you were here."

"Well," John chuckled. "You did it all backwards, love," he lectured sweetly. "You have to break them and have your way with them first. That and you have to get married in Vegas, I mean come on!"

Jack's shout of 'Enough' echoed through the room and made everyone flinch. "I don't want to hear about your corruption of this woman unless you want me to kill you. Now what happened to her?"

"She died," John squeaked incredulously. "It wasn't me either. She came down with some fucked up virus with a weird name. Hex, something...

"Hexdrac-381," Harry supplied.

"That's it! Messy slow death that was."

Harry arched an eyebrow. "There is an antidote, you know."

John rolled his eyes. "Yes, doctor, I know there's a bleedin' antidote. I just couldn't fucking get any because the Vegas galaxy tends to not like to get involved with the more exotic diseases."

Harry opened his mouth to make some sort of objection but Jack stopped him. "It's true," Jack assured him. "The Vegas galaxy is the last place you want to get sick in. They won't let you leave, or anyone that came with you, and they won't get you help either."

Jack looked over at Ianto, who shared the same knowing glance. They knew what an accelerated form of the disease felt like. Lord knew the suffering this woman had gone through before she'd succumbed.

"Doesn't explain the ghost thing," Ianto continued, driving the conversation back to the real problem. "I've never seen anyone act like that while dead. Did she pop up right away?"

John shook his head. "She popped up when I arrived in Cardiff," he declared to everyone's shock. "If she was there before I never saw her. I was planning to come here anyway but I wanted to take a stroll through this lovely city before hopefully disappearing into Jack's bed for a few days." He didn't see Jack's lethal glare but his face fell anyway. "There she was," he breathed, "just hanging out right in front of me when I popped in. Couldn't shake her no matter what I did and no one else saw her. You think people think you're mad when you walk around dressed in 'period,' wait until you run from things that aren't there."

That was an amusing image, Ianto had to admit. The great John Hart bolting down a crowded street screaming about bogey women. He smirked slightly.

"You know something, dead man?" John snapped. "Or are you just going to keep laughing at me?"

"Might do," Ianto replied mildly. "Or I say we check out Cardiff in the morning and sort out if there's anything there that would have a draw on Moira, aside from you."

"I'm not enough?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Dead man, remember? I've been a ghost and I can tell you right now that if what you're implying were true then I would have been hanging around Jack along with everyone else he's loved that's died." Now there was a depressing thought. If when you died you were condemned to follow around the one you loved for the rest of their lives. Then what would happen after they died? Would there just be clusters of ghosts following everyone around? Ianto set his shoulders to stop the oncoming shudder. He didn't think anyone noticed.

"You're the expert," John admitted somewhat grudgingly after a moment. "But why not now? I want this bitch gone!"

Ianto believed he should have a prize for managing to keep his annoyed sigh from turning into a proper growl. "Look, I've already had one hell of a day without you showing up and I refuse to even touch this insanity without a decent night's sleep."

He distinctly heard everyone voice their agreement in one form or another, all except Harry. "Harry?" he called once he saw that he had left the group.

"Right here," replied the medic as he bounced back up to the main Hub. "Just setting up a space for Captain Hart."

"Where are you stashing me?" he asked as he moved to follow Harry. "The morgue?"

"Not quite," Harry answered and then, quite amicably, stabbed John in the neck with a syringe. He dropped to the floor like a tonne of bricks. "I'm not risking him doing something while we're sleeping," Harry explained to his stunned co-workers. "That will put him out and only another shot from me will wake him up."

Mel smirked. "Morpheus 2?" That was Harry's most recent brain child. He'd only just run a successful human test last month – on a then possessed Andy Davidson.

Harry glowed at Mel's praise. Ianto rolled his eyes again and he could hear Gwen and Jack chuckling. Honestly, those two needed to get together for the sake of the future of the team's sanity. He was quite sure Gwen and Jack would explode one day soon and he did not want to be the one who had to clean that nonsense up.

"Alright," Jack announced once he had his voice steady again. "Let's move him."

Harry, despite having every faith in his serum, had been the one to insist that John be strapped down to the examination table. Ianto hoped they unstrapped him before they woke him up, he doubted he'd ever be in the mood to hear the things that would leave John's mouth about seeing that. No one wanted to leave the hub either in case of failure either. Out came the Torchwood cots and everyone spread out. Gwen and Harry were set up in the main workspace closest to the medbay. Mel was sleeping up on the catwalk with her rifle at the ready right across the medbay and over Gwen and Harry like a guardian angel. No need to be floral, actually. Mel was lying in wait like a protective sniper and that was that.

Ianto and Jack were sleeping in Jack's office, door open. This was more at the team's insistence and Ianto was glad of it. They'd had a hell of a day and they needed a bit of time together. Especially to break down Jack's flashback. Ianto also had to admit that he was very glad that his apparent immortality was being put on the backburner.

"So you didn't remember any of it until I told you?" Jack asked him again.

"Not all of it," Ianto sighed. He'd warned Jack that he'd lose things and even when he'd first come back it had been like grasping at straws. "I remember that Tosh found me, I remember trying to find you but those bits of conversation only really came back as you told them to me."

Jack hummed in thought, pushed the cot open and then threw himself on it. "Think it has something to do with Moira?"

"I doubt it. It's not like either of us knew her so she's not here for us. She's here for John or whatever is here. That's not connected to us."

"Maybe it's you," Jack suggested. "Maybe you brought something back with you."

Ianto snorted. "I don't see any Weevils cowering in fear when I approach," he quipped. "It's not me but it easily could have been." He stopped at that last statement. That hadn't been what he'd meant to say. Somewhere he heard Jack asking him what that meant but all he saw was their flat looking a little more than soulless and a Jack with red rimmed eyes throwing what appeared to be glasses at something. That blurred into a weeping Jack leaning against a wall and, somewhere along the edges of Jack he could make out something that looked suspiciously like his own shoulders.

"Ianto? You okay?"

"Yeah," Ianto mumbled. "Think I'm seeing something myself."

"Care to share?"

"Not yet," Ianto shook his head. "I need to find a way to describe it before I can say anything..." That was honest. He didn't know how to explain what all that was.

"Bad?"

"Not sure, but certainly sad."

Jack let it drop at that and beckoned Ianto onto the cot. Ianto pulled off his tie, jacket and waistcoat and settled in next to Jack. Normally he hated sleeping in his clothes but there was no way he was going to risk John walking in and finding him half naked. Dead Man was not a nice nickname but it was worlds better than Eye Candy.

"We still need Harry to look over you," Jack reminded him softly. Being careful to not upset him.

Ianto responded with warmth, he had to reward Jack somewhere and there was no way he was turning around to face Jack. He'd flip them over. "I know. I'll do it after we get Hart sorted. I don't want him to know."

As he and Jack said their good nights, and got as comfortable as they could, Ianto got the nagging feeling that John would find out soon enough.

Music entered Jack's dream, or at least what thought was a dream. When the world solidified into what appeared to be a 1950s dance hall with Jimmy Ruffin himself singing "Turn Back the Hands of Time." He'd never been to this dance hall and had never seen Jimmy Ruffin perform; it hadn't really been his scene. Then he wondered if he had, in fact, died when he saw Toshiko Sato in a lovely little black dress beside him.

"What do you think?" she asked, gesturing at the hall and the crowd of people dancing. What he wanted to say was that she looked fantastic and he wanted to spin her around but his mouth wouldn't open and his arms wouldn't move. The voice that did eventually leave him wasn't of his own volition and it certainly was not his own.

"I think you're trying to kill me," answered Ianto's voice. It all clicks then. This is another flashback and this time he's getting it directly from his point of view. So where were they?

That was answered right on demand with teasing smile and a little headshake from Tosh. "You're already dead, silly!" He might have known.

Ianto snorted. "Like I'd forgotten," he griped.

"Look," Tosh said, taking his/their hand and squeezing. "I thought this might cheer you up a bit. We go dancing while Owen is off with Katie for a bit."

"Good to know someone's on good terms with their ex," Ianto grumbles.

Tosh squeezed again. "I'm sorry about Lisa not taking it better."

Jack felt a cringe go through him and he wasn't sure if it was from him or from Ianto. Lisa and Ianto had been fairly serious before Canary Wharf had happened and destroyed them both – Jack was fairly certain that if he ever went back and time and met the Ianto of those days he would never have recognized him. Ianto had changed so much and Lisa, despite being dead, certainly would have as well. Ianto had said once before that he doubted he was the person that Lisa had fallen in love with anymore. The implication here was that the meeting had gone poorly; it seems that they had both been right and Jack was truly sorry for that.

Ianto sighed. "I told the truth," he said with finality and resignation. "I believe what I said and I think she knows it as well. We're two different people now, that's why it went so poorly. I'm obviously not much in a dancing mood as a result."

Owen appeared out of nowhere with a quip about Ianto not wanting to dance even at the best of times, which was true enough, and then asked Tosh for a dance. Tosh pauses for a moment, obviously hesitant to leave Ianto by himself. "Go on," Ianto predictably urges. "I'll be fine."

Tosh took Owen's offered arm and leads his partner away. "Oh!" he starts. "Here's something to try," he begins. "You can conjure up your own dance partner if you like. Anyone you like. Living, dead, mortal or otherwise." Jack rolled his eyes. Owen was not the most subtle of beings but this was ridiculous and almost beyond cruel. The suggestion that Ianto would do such a fanciful, saccharine thing was insane.

Except the next thing he knew he was looking through Ianto's eyes at a perfect image of himself. He felt surprise rock through him and he knew that wasn't his own. Obviously this had not been intentional. Ianto had mentioned something about Owen being able to operate outside of what would be considered 'normal' parameters. He wasn't sure whether Owen was doing Ianto a favour here or not. The image opened its mouth to say something but Ianto's hand waved to shush it. "Don't," he ordered. "Just...just give me a dance, okay?"

It was very odd, Jack decided, to be dancing with himself. Really it was Ianto dancing and he was just along for the ride. For all intents and purposes, however, he was Ianto and he still can't help feeling the surreal quality of this. He also can't help but feel honoured and his heart begins to break once Jimmy Ruffin begins to sing "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted." All you had to do was look over here, Jimmy, Jack thought.

They made it halfway through the song when Ianto pulled out of the doppelganger's arms and curtly ordered it away. It vanished with a look of dejection and then they stormed out onto what seemed to be a balcony looking over an ordinary street. There was, however, a familiar looking disembodied doorway between two buildings that was surrounded by a small crowd. As Tosh and Owen appeared beside them, a woman stepped through that door and was immediately swept into the arms of her boyfriend/husband/whatever. A joyful reunion after who knows what amount of time.

"I'm never going to get that aren't I?" Ianto all but choked. "I could stand there and wait until the universe explodes or something and even then..."

Jack always knew that immorality was a curse, had been preaching it for years, but he wanted to take it all back in this moment. This was worse. This was so much worse. On this side of things you knew damn well that a reunion was possible. You see it all the time and you know that that might never well happen because the one you're waiting for cannot die. Tosh thankfully chose that moment to hug Ianto tight and Jack thanks whatever there is that will hear him that at least Ianto was not alone.

Suddenly, Jack heard his own voice echo through his and Ianto's collective head. It's an opinion about coffee and Ianto replied aloud. "It's awful, sir. Don't spend your money in this sordid establishment again. And why the hell are you in Beijing anyway?"

What? Jack wondered. What in the name of...

"Who were you talking to," Owen asked sharply.

"Jack," Ianto said frankly. "He asked my opinion on a coffee shop and I gave it."

That doesn't make any sense. Jack knew damn well that in real time he was moping around in the living world somewhere and Ianto is obviously here in wherever land away from bad coffee and away from him. Then it hit him that he always used to talk to Ianto in his head, or at least that's what he had thought for most of the time he'd done it, while he'd been gone. He'd ask his opinion on things and sometimes he'd hear an answer. This was what it looked like on Ianto's end of things obviously. And this was obviously news for Tosh and Owen.

"You can hear him?" Tosh whispered.

"Sometimes," Ianto said. "Last time was three weeks ago."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Owen sputters. "You know how much time has passed since you died?"

An eyebrow raises. "Four months, one week," Ianto recited. "Don't you know?"

Tosh shook her head violently. "No, no one knows! There's no time here or you'd go mad knowing how long it's been since you'd breathed or seen your loved ones."

"Great," Ianto grumbles. "I'm going to go mad despite not having any brain chemistry. It would be me."

"Something's wrong," Owen said to himself. "Come on," he grabbed Tosh and Ianto by the hands and dragged him out. Jack was out on his own again watching the three of them rush out into the distance, leaving the nostalgia party in their wake.

The world around Jack began to fade, and Jack soon went with it.


	8. Chapter 8

Ianto woke up the sound of Jack mumbling in his sleep. Ianto sat up and stared with bleary eyes at the wall behind Jack's desk. It was only after he rubbed his eyes for a few moments when he was able to ascertain that it was some unholy hour of the morning of the thirteenth of August and that they'd only been asleep for about four hours. Usually that was a blessing during rough times like these, but he needed much more sleep than that.

Jack's mumbling suddenly turned into a full out, and equally unintelligible, yell and his arm came flying out to knock Ianto off the cot and onto the floor with a more than disgruntled "oomph." Ianto remained on the floor for a few moments, silently waiting for Jack to come around and stop flailing about. He wasn't going to be able to be of much use to either of them he was simply going to get knocked off the cot again.

"Ianto?" There was Jack's worried voice. That was telling.

"On the floor sir," he grumbled promptly. This was the last time they were sharing a single cot. The very last time. Before he could say this to Jack he was hauled off the floor with all the finesse of a caveman carrying off dinner and then he was held in an embrace so crushing that it was desperately close to sending him to yet another death. While he struggled to breathe he was shocked to hear Jack whispering something over and over to him. It sounded a lot like 'sorry.' Ianto was about to make a quip about him not needing to apologize for knocking him out of bed but he could sense well enough that that wasn't the problem or the appropriate response.

He pushed Jack just far enough away from him, the other's arms loosening reluctantly, to get a good look at him. He knew that look; he'd seen it earlier today on the roof – or rather yesterday. "What did you see this time?"

When Jack told him what he'd seen Ianto soon found himself hugging Jack. Unlike the last flashback this was an instance that Ianto vividly remembered. It was completely irrelevant now, of course, no matter how much it had hurt at the time. "It's fine," he assured Jack, as he released Jack. "I have you know and I might just have you forever, remember? We don't need to worry about anything like that happening ever again."

For the first time since the idea of Ianto being immortal was tabled Jack's eyes lit up. "Yeah," he agreed, voice shaking despite the light in his eyes. "My God..." he breathed. "That was much worse than being left behind," he said. "And you never said a word."

"I wasn't hiding anything," Ianto promised. It was the truth and the last thing he wanted to do was revisit that issue again. "I haven't thought about much since coming back – at least I don't remember doing so when I was still dead, I mean. As I said, I have the real thing here."

Jack seemed to accept that but he wasn't done yet. "What about Lisa?" he finally asked. "Do you remember that?"

Ianto nodded. "Didn't go well, but you know that."

"You said to Tosh that you'd said something that she hadn't wanted to hear."

"It wasn't just that," Ianto deflected. He'd answer the real question eventually but he needed to warm up to it. "The whole meeting was like we had never known each other. No feelings one way or the other, just completely neutral. Like two strangers waiting for the bus or something." He rubbed his eyes again and took a deep breath. "What Tosh was specifically referring to was my response to Lisa's question as to whether or not I would have fallen for you if she had survived." Ianto remembered that being odd. Lisa had never been the jealous type and it wasn't like she would have expected or wanted him to spend the rest of his life in celibate mourning for her. He wasn't sure if it had even been a jealous question. It was probably more curiosity since the two of them were such different people now. Either way, she hadn't liked the answer.

He wasn't going to tell Jack the answer though, it was obvious and Jack shouldn't need to have it told to them. Jack sat in confused but expectant silence for a few seconds before finally growing a brain and saying what he knew. "You said yes."

"And you said it as a fact and not as a question," Ianto praised. "Bravo, sir."

Was Jack blushing? He'd ducked his head a bit and it was too dark to tell for certain. He pressed on in order to distract them both from any embarrassment. "I told her that I would have stayed with her but that I thought that the...thing between us would have taken on a life of its own and pulled us toward each other and away from anyone else no matter what we did to stop it. Naturally she didn't like that." The query had been odd for another reason, Ianto remembered. It hadn't been like Lisa had been waiting around for them to meet again. He distinctly remembered having to seek her out himself, and that had taken some doing if his memory could be trusted after all this time.

Jack's response of "I think so too" drew him back into the real world. He rewarded Jack with a smile and then leaned over to give him a corresponding kiss. His body, however, chose that moment to remind him that he really should be sleeping; the yawn that Ianto let loose in Jack's face had to have matched the force of Jack's arm knocking him off the cot earlier.

Jack's only response was to blink in stunned surprise. "Thank you for brushing your teeth."

"You're quite welcome."

They made it through the rest of the night flashback free and personal injury free. Ianto eventually crawled out of bed around ten in the morning and decided to get breakfast going. He knew they had a pancake grill and some mix somewhere. Not surprisingly no one woke up as he passed except Mel, who thankfully did not shoot him before asking his name, rank, and the date of his 'second birthday' as it was termed in the identity confirmation questions. She then promptly passed out again. World's most efficient sniper indeed.

Eventually the smell of coffee and pancakes lured the team in one by one and they were soon clustered around on the couches chowing down on Ianto's shockingly nutritious breakfast. It was the first time they'd all had some quality time in quite a bit. "Can we just leave him out?" Gwen finally asked, referring to their sleeping beauty in the medbay.

"I wish," Jack chuckled with a mouthful of food. "However I want him out and the best way to do that is to wake him up and do what he wants."

"I'll check out any missing persons with her name from the period," Mel offered as she ate her last bit of pancake and rose to refill her coffee mug. "That will give us someplace to start and shouldn't take too long."

"And what if we get sucked through the rift?" Harry asked.

"You won't have to worry about it," Ianto assured him mildly. "I'll go with John."

Jack dropped his plate; it cracked but did not break. "No way," he told him. "You're not going out there alone with him."

"If we recall I'm the only one that could see and hear Moira as well as he could," he reminded the team. "And if all of us go out together who is going to be here to give reinforcements? Also Gwen won't be here after three, she has a dentist appointment for Tegan."

"I do?" Gwen started. "Shit!" she swore after a moment. "I'd forgotten about that." She paused and then brightened. "Rh-"

"Rhys can't take her today," he pre-empted. "He has to deliver a load personally so he'll be driving all day. The regular driver is in the process of getting fired."

"Reserve?" Mel asked.

"Lois isn't allowed in the field, Lachlan is still on med leave from the building collapse, Andy might be available and Martha's out of the country with Mickey dealing with what I suspect is a minor weevil outbreak in Toronto."

"Why isn't Martha working for us again?" Harry asked in bewilderment. It was justified. Ianto knew it had been no secret that Jack had been trying to seduce her to the Torchwood side of the force ever since he'd come back from grieving and seeing the world. "Mickey even?"

"Please consult your dictionary and look up the word 'freelance,'" Mel advised.

"Andy's free," Ianto reminded Harry. "At least he is if he gave me the right information about his shifts this time."

Jack was about to open his mouth until Gwen did. "As field agent coordinator," she cut in with a pointed look at Jack. "I say Ianto is going out with John, Mel can run the data basing and searches from here. Harry, get as much info as you can out of John before you wake him up. Jack, call Andy and tell him to help Ianto out and then you can help Mel and Harry."

Jack glared. "Look," Gwen lectured. "If you and Ianto and John go out nothing is going to get done. You demonstrated that last night. Ianto can see and hear Moira, you can't as well. Logic dictates that he's who we send."

"I'll be armed to teeth, Jack," Ianto assured him. "Also if he tries anything it's not like it's going to stick."

"I'm beginning to understand why it pisses you off so much when I say that." Jack got up off the couch and collected everyone's dishes and mugs. "Get to work. Now!"

Everyone snapped to. Ianto rolled his eyes at Gwen and then went to the armoury.

Andy hadn't been free. Instead of taking it out on him or Gwen or anyone else, Ianto was both amused and pleased to see Jack disappear into his office and later heard muffled yelling sometime after that. Perhaps Jack's ravings would get through to him more than Ianto's more polite reminders about providing correct information. Ianto suspected that Andy had finally gotten over his crush Gwen and wanted his evenings off.

What the fuck had Torchwood turned into? Gwen and Rhys were probably the first married couple in Torchwood in a century. Jack and him were a sure thing (though Ianto had every intention of throwing up on Jack's shoes if he ever proposed marriage) and it looked like Mel and Harry were getting closer and closer to at least shagging. John had once said that is was just sex, sex, sex, with Torchwood. It seemed that John was more right than Ianto had thought. At the rate of things he was surprised that Torchwood ran as well as it did.

"You gonna talk, Dead Man, or are you gonna make me figure this out on my own?"

He and John made a fairly good team oddly enough. That being said it did help that Gwen had caught his arm on the way out and given him the three rules that she said Jack had given her the last time. "Not like it helped me much," she admitted, fingers tracing her lips as if they were about to fall off, "but I didn't know what that rule really meant. You do. Keep your guard up."

Simple, really. John was always in front of him, he didn't believe a thing he said unless he himself could confirm it, and there was no god damned way he was letting John anywhere close enough to kiss him. Though, at Gwen's insistence, he was wearing a pair of rubber lips that Jack had gotten a hold of soon after that mess. They probably hadn't been replaced in the ensuing several years but it was all they had in the worst case scenario.

"Wake up," John snapped. "We're here."

Here happened to be a bus stop along the main street. According to Mel's research this had been the last spot Moira Stewart had been seen on 16 June 1820. She's just been sucked into thin air according to that eyewitness and it made sense considering John's story. This was also not a current Rift hot spot so the chances of anyone getting sucked in were even lower. That would cool Jack down, overprotective git that he was.

In the old days there had been a post office here. Now there was a hotel. It so happened to be the one that Jack had taken them all to after John's first visit to avoid themselves. He had to gather that John knew that so that sent warning flags. He may not have left right away that time.

A tap on his shoulder and he looked to see John offering him something on a chain. It looked like a simple circle. "Perception filter," he explained. "Might save you any funny looks when you go mad scientist on the place."

Ianto took at and looked at it sceptically. John rolled his eyes and pulled another one out of his jacket and slipped it around his neck. Almost immediately the wearer went fuzzy and Ianto felt a powerful need to not look at him. That sounded like what Jack had described last night. Trusting that he slipped the chain around his neck and John was brought violently back into focus. "Good job," John praised with dripping sarcasm. "Now would you mind doing something?"

"Half a moment," Ianto griped as he sidestepped a mother and her brood of children. He pulled out the standard portable rift monitor and hailed Mel on the Bluetooth. "Anything new? Any reason she'd be haunting Cardiff?"

"Not according to my information," Mel reported. "The only person she knew in Cardiff was her sister, who was a governess for a Mr. Robert Brooke's two daughters. Jack's gone to investigate the old place, it's a historical site now and he's got the site cleared. You're welcome for keeping him from tagging along with you by the way."

"Thanks," he smiled. "Shall I try him?"

"Might as well. Doubt he's found anything this soon though."

"What's going on?" John asked.

"Nothing in Cardiff that would make her only appear in Cardiff," he reported. "So far looks like she's here for you. Cardiff could simply be a coincidence."

"Fantastic," John grumbled, leaning against the hotel and watching the people coming and going out of it. "Just what I need; a bloody dead wife wandering around."

Ianto raised an eyebrow but didn't look up from his screen. "You said you hadn't married her."

"I use the term sarcastically," John drawled. "I thought you'd know it when you hear it."

Ianto rolled his eyes and, finding nothing on the scanner, called Jack. "Anything on your end?" he asked.

"Nada," Jack sighed. "She was treated well apparently. This building has absolutely no real history. The only reason it's a historical site is because it looks pretty. I swear that's what it says in the literature. Mel cross checked it. This house is cleaner than the archives."

"Wouldn't go so far as to say that," Ianto said, miffed, "but I see your point." A cluster of people decided to have an incredibly loud conversation to his right to Ianto stepped forward onto the street corner, one eye safely on John. "I had gathered Cardiff was a coincidence."

"Any theories?"

"Several. Unfortunately I'm not dead so I can't try any of them out."

"Can you list them without killing yourself, please? Oh and don't you dare ask John to shoot you or jump into traffic to test that out."

Ianto didn't respond to that; no need to give John any ideas. "Does John have high empathic scores? Telepathy scores?" The insane laughter on the other end was enough. "Moira's trapped then," Ianto said. "Or she did it by accident. Or John's having us on and he did it somehow."

"You think?"

"You tell me, you know him better."

"Fuck," Jack cursed. "Sorry, Ianto, we've got tourists. Be back in a flash." Ianto grumbled an affirmative as the line went dead.

"Any ideas, Dead Man?" John made his way over to the street corner. "Heard you listing some things and didn't like that last one."

"Just offering options," Ianto lectured. "Now, did anything odd happen when Moira died? Anything that can't be explained by the illness?"

"No, she went insanely clingy though." John gave a slight shudder, as if a cold wind had come by. There was no wind but Ianto could see Moira a few feet behind him. He'd draw his attention to it later. "She threw her arms around me, begged me not to let her go and then up and died right there."

Moira inched closer to John, arm outstretched and reaching. "Behind you," Ianto warned. John jumped and whirled away from her, almost knocking himself into the road.

"Jesus," John yelled the spectre. "Can you go cross over or whatever the fuck you're supposed to do? I was never going to stay with you!"

"Yes you would have," Moira whispered. "I remind you of him."

John gritted his teeth. "Jack wouldn't haunt me. Not his style."

"Back up," Ianto ordered. "You corrupted and seduced Moira because she reminded you of Jack? How? She doesn't even look like him!"

"It's something in the eyes," John shouted, whirling to scream in Ianto's face. Ianto dodged back and almost fell over. "Something from back in his younger days when he and I were the hottest thing next to a supernova, before the Time Agency fucked with his head and before the damned Doctor and certainly before you came along, you Dead Man with a nice arse and no decency to stay dead!"

It was with horrifying clarity that Ianto realised that he was on the edge curb and that he heard a truck coming. So much for keeping Hart in front of him, he thought as John shoved him into the truck. As he fell he grabbed at John's perception filter and yanked it off, his other hand ripping off his own.

Then there was a world of pain.

Then nothing made sense.


	9. Chapter 9

Jack knew something was wrong right away. He knew something was wrong even before the world went black again. He had just finished chasing a crowd of insistent tourists out of the building who, despite his yelling about this being a crime scene and whatnot, seemed to only be encouraged to try harder.

"Admire the nice architecture outside!" He'd bellowed at them. He'd barred the doors and was about to try Ianto again when the world flipped like it had in the flat yesterday. He'd only had the time to think 'not again' before he found himself standing next to Ianto. The present Ianto this time, to his relief, though that feeling quickly vanished once Ianto saw him.

"How the hell did you get yourself killed in the Brooke House?" he demanded.

"I'm not dead!" Jack defended and then realised what the implication was in that question. "Wait. Are you?"

"That bastard Hart shoved me in front of a truck," Ianto seethed. "I am going to kill him when I come back."

"If you come back, you mean! It's not a sure thing with you!"

Ianto was ready to challenge that but was stopped by the world flipping again. This time it was almost nauseating. Everything soon solidified their kitchen. Standing in the kitchen was another Ianto, this one looking more than perplexed as he stared at a pen and paper as his hand clenched and unclenched at his side.

"What are you doing?" he asked his Ianto.

"Deciding whether or not I have the ability to write you a note," Ianto informed him with some measure of 'you moron' underlying it.

"You have a hand," Jack answered in the same tone. It had been a reasonable enough question to him considering the other Ianto seemed to be treating the task like some sort of challenge.

"I'm dead there!" Ianto snapped. "Look, you can see the bloody couch through me. I can't write you a note because I can't hold that pen!"

Now that he mentioned it, Jack admitted. He did look transparent. Also the date on the calendar told him that it was the one year anniversary of Ianto's death.

"Oh fuck," Jack breathed, knowing what was going to happen next. "Please tell me you don't remember this."

"Remember what?" Ianto asked and Jack was not sure if he was being honest or not. No chance to clarify as Jack watched himself barge through the apartment door yelling at someone on his mobile. Gwen, Jack knew. He remembered this conversation

_No! _ Past-Jack yelled lividly. _I am not going back there, and I'm not going to any other ones. I can't do it!_

He stumbled into the kitchen, past-Ianto leaping out of the way as if Jack was going to kill him. Past-Jack blasted through past-Ianto's arm anyway, leaving no reaction on his face while the ghost shook out his hand like he'd banged it against something. _No, Gwen, for Christ's sake it's..._ he tried to find words at the same time he rummaged the cupboards one handed for something. _No, I'm not. End of discussion....No you can't come 'round! Just...just leave me alone, okay? You've got nothing to worry about. Anything stupid I do will just come undone anyway._ He slammed the mobile shut and took out the battery.

"Memorial service?" his Ianto asked. Curious but unsurprised; it seemed the more Jack remained alive the more predictable he became.

"I didn't want to go," Jack admitted, not taking his eyes off his past self ripping the kitchen apart for scotch. "I eventually went because Gwen had some deluded idea that it would help things. Things were going as well as they could be and I didn't think this was going to help any. I was right."

"But that really was it was it." A statement and not a question; Jack was proud in a strange way.

"I'd noticed the days pass without you and today, this one year mark, showed me how easy it had been to adjust to waking up without you, to going to work and not expecting to see you there. As much pain as I was in, I still went on. That bothered me. I'd survived three hundred and sixty-five days without you and if I could do that I could certainly go on forever." He looked to Ianto for reassurance but there was nothing there to give. "I was worried maybe in spite of myself that I would forget you." This was something that haunted him to this day. What if things had been different, what if Ianto had stayed dead and each day had become easier and easier. One day there would be no memory left to miss. It had happened to some people already, he knew. Sometimes he had to look in his photo box to be reminded of them, and there were hints of memory. Just like smoke lingering in a room, you knew that it had been there but you couldn't remember why.

He had never thought he'd be able to forget Ianto. Not of all people. That day told him that one day he would and that there was nothing he could do to stop that.

Ianto said nothing in reply despite the magnitude of this confession. He instead turned back to the scene playing before them. Past-Jack had pounded back what had to have been scotch number five and then started throwing things. Not a good week in his life, some detached part of Jack noted, and that was saying something.

Past Ianto had hit the floor when the glasses started flying and was yelling at Jack to stop it. _It's my fault, okay!_ he was yelling_. I'm the one who insisted on going in with you, remember? It's my bloody fault. Just stop this. JUST STOP!_

Past-Jack stopped. Past-Ianto looked up in fear from the floor but opened his mouth to speak anyway. _Good_, he said slowly. _Now sit down and let it out._ He took a fortifying breath. _I'm right here_, he said with a voice of iron. _If you can hear this you know I am, I swear to whatever there is that I'm real. I'm here. I'm with you. I've never left._ He laughed bitterly. _I've never been able to refuse you anything, you know that. You've certainly abused it enough. Now sit down before you fall apart_.

All this time past-Jack had been frozen to the spot. Jack did not himself remember hearing any of this, though that wasn't saying much since he really didn't remember much of this day past the conversation with Gwen. Near emotional breakdowns did that to a man. At any rate, past-Jack took the advice and sat down. Right on top of where Ianto had sat: in front of the fridge. As that broken man drew his knees close to him, and then began to cry into them, Jack saw a pair of ghostly arms wrap around him. _It's okay_, past-Ianto's muffled voice told him. _It will be okay. I promise. _

Then it seemed that the ghost of Ianto Jones was starting to disappear into past-Jack. He looked over at his Ianto, who seemed to have had an epiphany. "That's it!" he near cheered. "That's what happened to Moira!"

"What's happening to you?" Jack demanded with a frantic gesture at the scene before them. "Explain that and then we'll get to what's going on with Moira!"

"I saw part of this," he explained, talking quickly now. "When you asked me I said I couldn't tell you yet because I didn't know what was going on. That was this. Tosh and Owen warned me. One of the first things they warned me about when I met up with them was to not get too close to you. Not try and hug you or anything. Not when I was so newly getting used to moving about."

"Why not?"

"Because you can get sucked in!" Ianto explained. "That life force that all living beings have, we can feel it and we all want that back or at least want to get close to it. If we get too close we're just drawn to it like moths are drawn to light, and they we become slaves to that. It's especially easier if it's someone you love. Too many emotions going on there." He paused. "John said, before he killed me, that Moira threw her arms around him and begged him to not let her leave and then she died there. She must have been sucked in right away. She was already hugging him after all."

"You died in my arms," Jack reminded him. "Why didn't that happen to you?"

"I wasn't holding you. You were holding me. And.." Ianto sighed. "I was in so much pain that I _wanted_ to leave."

It was a painful thing to hear but it did make Jack feel better that Ianto had fled instead of hanging onto him like that. He didn't know how he would have felt finding Ianto like that...he thought back to the scene before him. If that's what was happening here then...

"What saved you?" he asked. "Did you pull yourself out?"

"I pulled him out!" came a well loved, cheerful, female voice. The kitchen scene disappeared and out of the fading colour came a smiling Toshiko Sato. "Sorry about all the flashbacks, Jack," she apologized. "I wanted to actually _tell_ you about these things but," she shrugged, "it's been awhile since I've been able to talk to anyone. Bit out of practice."

Some distant part of Jack filed that away but was much more pleased to see the woman before him instead of her supposed mistakes. He rushed her and grabbed her into a tight hug, which she returned just as fiercely before she was released and then was swept away by Ianto. "Missed you lot too!" she choked out once Ianto let her go.

"You're alright," breathed a relieved Ianto. "I was so worried I'd cost you and Owen – is Owen.-?"

"He's fine," Tosh assured him. "He's off doing whatever he does when he's not with me. Sorry we couldn't let you know before now. Extreme amount of energy that." And she looked at Jack again. "Worth it though, wasn't it? You get him forever! That wasn't planned."

Ianto snorted. "This just an unplanned side effect then?"

"Oh it's his doing," Tosh replied merrily when a gesture to Jack. "Not intentionally, of course, but there you have it."

Ianto looked at Jack, Jack shrugged at the other man. "You got any ideas?" Ianto shook his head as well.

"Remember the cliff?" Tosh asked Jack. "We asked you to picture pushing Ianto off a cliff when you ended up on our side?" They nodded and she continued. "You went over with him instead of shoving him." Jack remembered and nodded at Tosh. "Just like that scene you saw," she went on. "You were on our side but you still were alive, so to speak. So, not only did Ianto have mine and Owen's potential energy, but he also got a good helping of yours as well."

"And my life force is infinite," Jack concluded. It made sense.

Ianto gripped Jack's hand and his other was gripping the back of his own head. He let out a breath of awe, exhaustion, and shock. "It's official then?" he asked. "I'm like Jack?"

Tosh bobbed her head back and forth. Her hand did the same. "More or less, I think. Unlike Jack, though, I think one day you're going to have a choice about whether you want to leave forever or not. And you could probably keep saying no as long as you like, I reckon. But, that choice isn't going to come up for a long while yet." She shrugged again as though to say 'and there you have it.' "So you're mostly like Jack. Does that help?"

That didn't seem to matter too much to Ianto, who released Jack's hand and stood to attention. "Okay," he pressed on. "We'll deal with that later. We need to help Moira now." He sighed. "It's going to have to be me isn't it?"

Tosh nodded. "Did Jack see her too?"

"Barely," Jack answered. "Is that bad?"

"No," Ianto shrugged. "Just means this is strictly on Tosh and me."

"Why?"

Ianto gestured to Tosh. "Remember I said that I pulled Ianto out?" She began. "I could pull him out because I was the one who found him in the dark. I was the first person to see him after he'd died and I knew where he was supposed to be. That makes you more visible to the person who's in trouble and makes you a stronger anchor."

"In Moira's case no one has seen her or because she never left in the first place," Ianto continued. He looked over at Tosh. "I'm the only one on this side of things who has seen her and I need Tosh's help since I'm really not dead. Not for good anyway."

Tosh nodded. "She also acknowledged you, didn't you? That's the thing that seals it."

"How do you know all this?" Jack asked, ignoring all this troubling talk in favour of something more light hearted.

"I've been doing my research, don't you fret," Tosh teased. "I do have to keep busy somehow." She winked.

Ianto groaned. "Remind me to close all doors in the flat from now on."

"Wouldn't matter," Jack reminded him.

"Don't remind me about that either," Ianto lamented. Tosh smirked at him and held out a hand.

"Come on," she urged. "Let's get her out. I'll take good care of her."

Ianto began to follow until Jack grabbed his shoulders. Ianto began to protest but then stopped and turned in Jack's grip, an eyebrow slowly rising at the display of neediness before him. Jack really didn't care. "You're not leaving me." He wasn't sure whether it was a question or a statement.

"No, I'm not," Ianto replied. "I'll be fine and I'll be back." He chuckled, bemused. "For once it's more than likely that I'll come back in one piece and you look frantic." He wrapped his hands around Jack's elbows and pulled his hands away. "This is my job. For the last time, please let me do it."

Jack mirrored Ianto's chuckle. "You'll have to add doing work while dead to the job description."

"I'll get to it right away, sir."

Jack nodded and then gave him a quick but tender kiss. "Go on," he whispered.

"I'll be seeing you," he whispered back. He stepped back still facing Jack. "Ready, Tosh!"

"Let's get to it then," Tosh turned Ianto around and brought him to her side.

Ianto stopped dead. "Wait."

"Now what?" Tosh moaned.

"Who's going to get John? He's probably halfway across Cardiff by now."

Tosh smirked. "Oh don't worry about that," she assured them. "That truck that John shoved you in front of? Guess who the driver was."

Ianto raised an eyebrow again and Jack burst out laughing. "Rhys?" he laughed. "It's Rhys isn't it?" Rhys had not forgotten about John's previous visit and he was itching for some payback. This was going to be fantastic.

"Save the beatings for when I get back!" Ianto called. He and Tosh were getting further and further away.

"No promises!"

For the first time in a long time, Jack went hurling back to life with a smile.


	10. Chapter 10

Jack came back to chaos. Every single solitary of member of Torchwood was on the line and that included the reserve staff. Once he broke into the conversation and deflected all the questions and outrage he managed to get what had happened out of them.

Both men had been wearing perception filters and Ianto had thought quick enough to pull them off both him and Hart before getting killed. Of course the public reaction had been intense, frantic calls for police and ambulances and simply panicked bystanders had overloaded Gwen's display screens. Thankfully she'd stepped in, sending a girlfriend to take Tegan to that appointment, and had managed them all while activating all the reserve staff. She had also summoned Andy to deal with it from the police end of things. Lachlan had appeared, arm in a sling and walking with the aid of a crutch, at the scene with retcon and to help Andy with crowd control. It was amazing how intimating Lachlan could be even while he was on the mend. He was definitely Mel's brother.

Mel and Harry had arrived at the scene in record time in order to subdue Hart, but Rhys had done that himself. Rhys had never gotten to throw so much as a punch at the former Time Agent for almost killing his daughter and he had taken full advantage of that opportunity today. Mel eventually left Harry to help her invalid brother and Harry had made Lois help him out with getting Ianto out. Lois had been asking about body bags and Harry was lecturing her about reading reports every once in awhile.

At the moment Lois and Harry were driving Ianto back to the hub in Ianto's car; Harry had nicked Ianto's keys out of the archives since Jack had taken the SUV to Brooke House. Rhys was taking the truck back to Harwood's and would be bringing John back in his own car. Lachlan, Mel and Andy would be along as soon as damage control was done with. Gwen was, of course, helping as much as she could remotely.

"He's not up yet," Harry was telling Jack as he weaved in and out of traffic, fiddling with the controls that would turn sirens on. "It's got to have been half an hour now."

"Give him time," Jack growled as he finally managed to turn the sirens on and honked irritably at cars that refused to clear the way. "He's got major injuries to come back from and he's got some work to do."

"Work?"

Jack stuck his head out the window and shouted some something offensive about the mother of the driver in front of him. They finally got out of the way. "I'll explain it all when I get in."

"Assuming you're not arrested for traffic violations and the SUV's impounded," Gwen cut in. "I can only do so much to keep the patrol cars away from you."

"Ten more minutes!" he vowed. "Ten more minutes and I'll do whatever you want."

"I'll hold you to that, Harkness."

Despite his speeding Jack was still the second vehicle to arrive, if only by a hair. Lois was leaning up against Ianto's car looking absolutely distracted and avoiding looking in the back seat window behind her. "Harry's gone to get a stretcher," she explained. "I didn't want to leave him alone in case he..." she whimpered and Jack took that moment to hug her.

Lois had come a long way from the flustered temp who had been drawn into the affairs their affairs three and a half years ago. She'd come a long way from the scared woman who had done surveillance for them when they could barely keep running, who had spied on the government for them, and who had helped rebuild the organization when there seemed to be nothing left to build on.

Lois, however, was basically the equivalent of Ianto when he had first started working for Jack. She was administration and general support relief staff – that was certainly a job title to trip over – and there were some things that she hadn't been tested against. That she wasn't willing to be tested against. That was why, despite the laments of the others, Jack had not allowed her to be placed on field duty rotation. It was too much too soon. The fact that she was still able to speak with a dead body in the back seat, one that was going to come back to life any second, was progress in of itself.

"Thank you," he said after he released her. "He'd have appreciated it." He gently directed Lois away from the door and opened it. He cringed and could feel Lois do the same beside him. Not surprising considering what was in the back.

Ianto's arms were by his sides and his legs were neatly next to each other but it was obvious there were broken bones. Ianto's face was nearly gone – probably from the front of Rhys's truck, Jack somehow noted – and his chest seemed to be caving in as well. Broken ribs at the very least. Seeing Ianto like this _again_ did as much damage to him as that truck had done but he forced himself to remember that Ianto would be back. Ianto had been doing this with him for years, hell a few times there had been only pieces left for Ianto to find, and either Ianto had gotten used to it or had hid it well. Ianto had admitted to him that it was the second possibility and Jack now knew it for himself. No matter how many times this was going to happen, Jack knew he would never get used to it.

Ianto had always gotten the job done, though. Whenever Jack had come back whatever mess had dispatched him had been taken care of. The world was secure and he was waiting for him. Time to take a leaf out of that book. "Let's get him up." It was just short of an order.

"Should we?" Lois asked. Footsteps echoed in the car park along with the rattling of what had to be a stretcher. More hospital equipment that Mel and Harry had nicked a few weeks ago; Gwen and him were still debating over whether that was a date or not.

"It's fine," Jack assured her. "He'll heal."

Lois was not comforted much by that but any protestation was silenced when Harry got the stretcher out and he, Lois and Jack carefully got him on it and up the stairs. Gwen was waiting for them up top, head set still in but paying no attention to the screens. "All under control," she reported as they set Ianto on the examination table. Harry began to buzz about and Jack remained by Ianto's side. Lois asked permission to leave and Gwen distractedly gave it. "The Telsons and Andy are just setting some stories straight for some bystanders and other policemen." She finished as she looked down at Ianto, worried but unflinching. "Rhys is on his way too," she added with unrestrained anger. "With John."

Rhys must have caught John by surprise, Jack had gathered that, but this must have _really_ been an assault. No one had bested John Hart in a fight beside Jack. He'd have to shake Rhys's hand and buy him some beer when this was all sorted. He'd probably have to fight Ianto for the first round, though.

Right on cue came squabbling and yelling and disgruntled "oomphs" up the stair case as John Hart was dragged up into the Hub by an infuriated Rhys. "Stuff it you," the truck driver warned as he threw him into Mel's chair violently, which spun around with the force to face the entrance to the medbay.

Jack couldn't help but laugh at the sight before him. Rhys had certainly made true on the promise to rearrange John's face if he ever saw him again. A good portion of this beating was on behalf of his young daughter, but being manipulated into a position where he had killed a friend had to have been a good part of it too.

Hart was sporting a split lip and an impressive black eye. There was also a blooming red spot on his cheek that heralded the coming of another bruise. There were certainly more wear and tear underneath those period clothes, and there had been a time centuries ago (or to come, he couldn't keep his tenses straight anymore) that he would have loved to tear those clothes off to see them and mock him for them before adding his own to the collection. Violent sex might or might not ensue from that point forward.

The only thing saving John Hart from a painful death was the fact that Tegan Williams and Ianto Jones were still alive. Or at least one of them would be alive soon enough. He looked down at the man on the bed and carefully held a broken hand. He knew he had done this trick many times before, a few ones he had had the misfortune to be conscious during, but it was hard to imagine anything that could bring Ianto back from this. Who would want to come back to this pain? It would happen though. It would happen for a very, very long time before Ianto got any say otherwise. He hoped that Ianto would come back after the healing was done; Jack knew firsthand the experience of feeling one's bones knit.

Everyone else had been silent during this. Gwen was standing with Rhys a safe distance from the bound John. John was leaning forward and looking back and forth between Jack and Ianto with an almost knowing confusion on his face.

"What happened to you?" John finally asked. It was probably the first honest question of the man's life. The real question underlying that one was 'who are you?' and that was something that had terrified Jack at first. Nowadays, he was delighted. "This is fucking serious," John continued. "You meant it with that one didn't you? What the hell did he do?"

Jack didn't really know and he honestly didn't care that he didn't know. There was nothing really to describe the change. It had been natural and Ianto had done it without meaning to. He couldn't answer that question for John, not that he believed the man would be able to understand it if he could. He did, however, want to make one thing abundantly clear. "I still mean it with him," he corrected without removing his hand or his eyes from the 'him' they were speaking of.

John raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to protest, probably really to make a comment about necrophilia being no fun at all, but he quickly caught on. "Are you serious?" he balked. "Christ, is immortality sexually transmitted then?"

Gwen and Rhys shook their heads. "Like you'd know," John shot back.

Jack decided now was not the time to mention what he, Ianto and the Williams's had gotten up to after a night at the club some time after Owen and Tosh's deaths. Blessedly Gwen and Rhys weren't in boasting moods either.

"How then?" John demanded. "Same way as you or different?"

"Different." That was all Jack was going to tell him and John didn't press any harder.

"He doing any better, Jack?" Rhys asked. "I can't quite see from up here."

Jack shook his head. "He's not going to start to heal until he's done what he has to do with Tosh."

"What's that about Tosh?" That was Mel. No Andy or Lachlan in her wake, surprisingly. Jack would have thought that Andy would have loved to see Ianto rise again just for the sake of things, he'd been annoyed about missing his recovery after the building collapse. He probably had some nonsense to deal with back at the station. Lachlan's absence shouldn't be surprising, Jack allowed. Volatile relationship with his sister aside, the man was still on the mend. "Didn't we safely assume that she and Owen hadn't survived Ianto's re-entry?"

Before Jack could tell her that they had been wrong. John cried out and fell out of the chair, writhing in pain. "What the fuck?" he gasped. He tied to tug his arms out of their bonds but Rhys's knots held firm. "Get these off!" he cried. "I won't run. I can't run!"

Gwen stepped forward and pulled them free. John didn't run. Instead he grabbed his sides tightly, bit his lip, and curled into a ball. "What is that bastard doing?" he howled.

"He's getting Moira out, isn't he?" Harry asked. John shifted wild eyes to Jack.

Jack nodded. "Moira didn't want to die so she held onto you until the last moment. Then she trapped herself." He took a breath. "Ianto's showing her the way home."

"Feels like he's sucking poison out," John gasped, the pain slowly leaving his eyes and his fingers slowly loosening from his side. Jack remembered Ianto's warnings and he gathered that John wasn't far from the truth there. John tensed and shut his eyes for a moment. A smile crossed his face, an honest one, and his head inclined lightly. "See ya, love" he whispered. When he opened his eyes they were clear. He sat up and looked around him.

"She gone?" Mel asked.

"Yeah," John nodded. "She's off with her family now." He waved off Rhys and Gwen's attempts to restrain him and settled back into the chair. He looked so forlorn and so broken hearted that Jack wondered for a moment if John really had loved Moira Stewart. It had seemed fun and games to him when he had gleefully told them of how he'd shattered her Victorian morality, but there had been something there. John Hart, much like Jack had been and still was, loved everyone. Maybe, just maybe, Moira Stewart had touched him in a way that he hadn't thought possible.

Maybe Moira could have been what Ianto had been for him. They'd never know now.

The hand in his shifted. Bones popped back into place and blood was reabsorbed back into skin. He heard Harry shout "it's starting!" and run up the stairs, but he didn't move his eyes from Ianto. He could imagine them all there: Gwen, Rhys, Harry and Mel all leaning over and watching over the two of them, John maybe watching in the back. But John didn't matter right now. What mattered were the other four and the two of them. He knew they were all holding their breath, waiting for one of their own to come home.

The legs and arms shifted back into their proper positions, the chest and face filled out again, and the cuts began to close. He was whole again. Then that hand squeezed Jack's and Ianto was thrust to a sitting position by the force of his first breath. He coughed, sputtered, and looked wildly around him for a moment as though he was taking mark of everyone above him and the one more beside him.

When his breathing returned to normal he looked over at Jack. "Told you I'd be fine," he near taunted. Jack didn't care about the jibe instead hugged Ianto tight, an embrace between old friends more than lovers, but that part didn't matter so much right now. Ianto had said he could do it and Jack hadn't doubted him for a moment: and he told Ianto so as well.

"Hovering anymore?" he asked.

"You're getting better."

They walked back up together; Ianto was immediately assaulted by hugs from Gwen and Harry and took some good natured handshakes from Rhys and Mel before John stepped forward from his chair. Jack respectfully took a step back and stood with the others, who had done the same. The two men who both could claim they'd held the heart of Jack Harkness regarded each other for the first time as equals. After several moments of what seemed to the observer to be blank states, matching smirks of understanding crossed their faces. John held out his hand. "Thanks," he said. "Thank you very much, Ianto Jones."

Ianto only took the handshake and gave a nod. As much as Ianto hated being underestimated he also hated having too much attention drawn to him. The fact that this was John Hart added a whole other dimension to it. He released other man's hand and took a step back, back behind Jack. He'd done his part, was what he was saying. It was Jack's turn now. John seemed to recognize that as well as he turned his attention to Jack. "Well," John said. "Best be on my way then. Things to do, people as well." He was leering well enough but something wasn't there. His heart wasn't in it.

"You know," Jack offered. "You can – "

"Thanks, mate," John cut in. "But I think I need to shove off. Kick the dust off my heels." He looked significantly at Jack and Ianto both. "I think you know how it is."

Jack certainly did. There were plenty of things that he wanted to ask but he knew that it wasn't the right time. Plus he figured they'd see John Hart again one day soon. That was one of very few certainties in this universe.

John punched something into his wrist strap, nodded at the group, and vanished without so much as a parting taunt.

"What is up with him?" asked Harry. "Not that I'm complaining after the last time, mind you, but what is that?"

"Someone he loves has died," Gwen said sadly.

"There is no way he loved her!" Rhys argued. "This is John Hart for god's sake! First time you met him didn't you mention that he wanted to shag a poodle?"

Jack chuckled. "Nothing wrong with poodles. And even if he didn't love her, she certainly made an impact."

"More than an impact, I'd wager," said Ianto. "I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd shake John Hart's hand and not feel the urge to punch him in the face afterwards."

"Well," Mel argued. "Technically speaking, you didn't. This is life number four now isn't it?"

Jack snorted at that, taking himself by surprise. Harry chuckled and everyone, even Mel and Ianto, eventually joined in. It had been a hell of a past few days; they had needed to have a good laugh. Trust Mel to be the one to deliver it.

They got back into the swing of things quickly enough. Everyone settled back into stations, Rhys and Gwen taking a few moments to exchange reports on Tegan and then finally to invite them all over for dinner. Everyone accepted. It seemed everyone wanted to be close tonight, which Jack more than shared and understood.

After Ianto disappeared back into the archives, he had some final things to sort out that he had left unattended from yesterday, Jack looked at where John had been standing for a moment and wondered about what would have happened if they'd fought a little harder to keep John here. Or about what would have been if he himself had simply vanished after the 456.

He doubted John was running from what had happened, that had never been his style, but he wanted to be alone. He didn't want them of all people to see him mourn. Another thing that he could understand.

He thanked whatever – if anything – was out there for his friends and for his second chances and then went up to his office. Back to the usual run of things now, or at least what would now be the usual run of things.

A reminder flashed up on his screen once he turned it on. _18__th__ August – Ianto's birthday. _Normally he didn't need a reminder for this date, and in the past few years remembering it had just hurt too damn much, but this one was important. This would be the first one since his return and also his thirtieth. Or was it technically his twenty-seventh? He'd been twenty-six when he'd died. Did you count those three years?

It didn't matter. The number wasn't the important part. The important part was that he was actually here now. This called for something special. And he thought he had just the thing


	11. Chapter 11

Birthdays had never been much of a celebration to Ianto. When he was growing up his sister had always tried to throw him a proper party when the attempts of their parents either fell flat or didn't happen at all. Ianto didn't blame his parents for those failures as much as Rhiannon did, though; it was silly to force two of the most profoundly unhappy people in the world to be happy even for the sake of their children. Ianto also preferred the old subdued observations than anything Rhiannon had tried to throw. Uni hadn't changed anything and Torchwood duties quite often got in the way of having any sort of proper celebration. He and Lisa had done one birthday dinner and he'd had small celebrations with the team. Despite the camaraderie he had felt for the later ones it really hadn't been a celebration. There was always an undertone of 'will we be sitting here with you this time next year?' That went for everyone's birthday though so Ianto accepted that.

This go around it was different. It was even different waking up in the morning. He'd woken before Jack and had gone to stand out on the small balcony and watch the sun rise. This was his first birthday in three years and it would be the first one that would legitimately feel like a celebration. That and there was no question about his longevity, at least for a good long while. He had a feeling that one day he would die, that one day he would want to leave, but that would be in his own way, on his own terms, and in his own time. Very few human beings could claim that and Ianto was not going to take that lightly.

He had so much, and that would get him through the day. Aside from festivities with the team, and a dinner with his sister and her family, Ianto did still work for Torchwood. Something would make this day run off schedule. He'd already warned Rhiannon and she was more than understanding. For the time being, he had this morning – or at least another half hour before Jack saw fit to get out of bed. The calm before the storm and a moment to appreciate his position, something he had never had a chance to really do.

Not surprising. He did work for Torchwood after all.

There had been birthday day sex not five minutes after Jack had woken up. Said birthday sex had taken place in various rooms, on various surfaces, and Ianto made Jack clean it all up in the name of his birthday. "Thirty years old," Jack teased as he tore the sheets off the bed and tossed the bundle into the growing pile of laundry. "Getting old."

"Twenty-seven," Ianto corrected. "I'm not counting the years that passed while I wasn't alive."

"They did still happen," Jack observed. "And it wasn't like you weren't conscious of them."

Ianto shrugged and ducked into the bathroom. He really didn't care whether people said this was his thirtieth birthday or is twenty-seventh. There would come a point where even he would lose count of how old he was. Jack had lost track of his own age long ago, though travelling in time so much had certainly made that calculation even more difficult. "Doesn't matter anyway," Jack had said when Ianto had first expressed distress that Jack couldn't remember how old he was. "It's nothing but a number anyway. That's one thing that's always stayed the same no matter where I've ended up."

"Please tell me you aren't in there looking for grey hairs in there." Jack's head appeared in the doorway of the bathroom and the teasing smile dimmed a little. "What are you thinking about?"

He almost told him but Ianto held his tongue. Not out of any sort of desire to hide anything but because he really wasn't sure what he was thinking about anymore. "Nothing important," was what he decided to say. He smiled ever so slightly and, when Jack's smile matched his, he wondered if he'd known the whole time.

"Come on," he gestured. "We've got to get some work done today."

"Of course by work you mean more shagging."

Jack's smile went back to full brightness, except this time it was more of a leer. Next thing Ianto knew it was back to the bed and he knew they were going to be late. No matter, he was a man who had all the time in the world and this happened to be his birthday. Gwen and the others could handle themselves.

Heaven knew why, but the day managed to go somewhat well. A few minor rift hiccoughs but nothing severe enough to make anyone stay late or to make them miss their dinner with Rhiannon. They were meeting the others for drinks after the fact, and probably more food considering Harry's latest experiment that had effectively killed the refrigerator. Harry would be paying for everyone the way he'd heard it. Or that was what he thought he heard Mel say.

The kids were out with their friends so it would just be Rhiannon and Johnny at a semi-decent restaurant where, hopefully, the day would continue to progress in a trouble free manner.

Jack was looking his typical dashing self and Ianto was wearing the suit that he typically reserved for formal occasions. He supposed this counted as formal, this was the first time he'd presented any lover to his sister and the fact that this was both his boss and another man added a whole other dynamic to his nerves.

"Quit your worrying over there," Jack ordered as he pulled them in to the car park. "It's going to be fine."

Jack had ended up being right. Rhiannon had been absolutely smitten with him, so much so that Ianto found himself sharing the same sceptical look as Johnny – both of them worrying if they'd leave alone tonight if this kept up. "I'd like to remind you that your husband is over there," Ianto said to his sister when Jack got up to get more drinks. "Also I would like to point out that I found Jack first."

"That man is too gorgeous to be kept to yourself," Rhiannon chided him. "Can't you lend him out?"

Ianto shook his head as Jack returned with another drink for Rhiannon and, to Ianto's surprise, another beer for him. "You were looking a little lonely," Jack winked and ruffled Ianto's hair before sitting down beside him and across from Rhiannon and Johnny. Ianto had to smile as he watched Johnny take Rhiannon's hand tightly in his own. He was about to show a bit of solidarity and take Jack's hand but Jack beat him to it. Ianto raised an eyebrow but Jack paid no attention as he asked after Mica and David and sought to learn more about the other couple. They'd already been interrogated after all.

This was insane. Too insane for words or thoughts. Never in a million years had he ever expected to be sitting at a table across from his sister with a significant other. The fact that it was Jack was another degree of impossible – or rather incredibly unlikely since he was hesitant to call anything impossible now. It was nice and harmless really. Everyone liked each other, Johnny's fear of being made single notwithstanding, but it was just so surreal.

Rhiannon and Johnny and the kids were his family by blood. His family though was Torchwood and the real celebration and the real party and the real connections would be there. He didn't want to disregard Rhiannon, he'd been an awful brother and he knew it but she loved him anyway, but there were only so many aliens one could see before there was some sort of disconnect. He didn't want there to be a disconnect, not with her.

Jack and him hadn't really discussed him telling Rhiannon about the immortality business but it was something that they recognized would have to be done eventually. Now seemed a good enough time.

"I can't die."

Rhiannon blinked at him. Jack and Johnny had gone to settle the bill, and probably fight over who got to pay for what, so he was alone with his sister by their cars in the empty car park. This was a moment where he would have expected Rhiannon to scream and go off like she did normally but instead she raised a familiar looking eyebrow and asked if he was having her on.

"Wish I was in some ways," Ianto said. "It's been proven though. Multiple times." Rhiannon winced and Ianto promptly regretted adding that last bit.

"So you'll live forever?"

"Close to it."

"What about Jack?"

"He's facing forever right along with me."

She started for a moment but quickly recovered. "That's good," she nodded. "At least neither of you will be alone." She smirked at Ianto's surprise. "You were expecting a more extreme reaction were you?"

"Well," Ianto began. "There is a strong precedent for it."

"Anything you say to me about you doesn't surprise me anymore." Rhiannon smiled that knowing older sibling smile. For the first time he wasn't annoyed by it. "It's also nice to know that I won't lose you again."

Ianto sighed. "I never told you how sorry I was for that did I?"

"No, but you don't have to. I'm assuming you didn't ask for it." Ianto didn't know who reached to hug whom first but next thing they hugging. They stayed that way until they could hear Jack and Johnny approaching. Rhiannon raised an eyebrow again, this time toward Johnny. Ianto shook his head and held out a hand as they stepped away from each other. Wait, was what he was saying. Despite other precedents about Rhiannon's ability to keep her mouth shut, Ianto knew that she'd keep quiet this time. No matter how calm she seemed to be there had to be some questions bouncing around in that head of hers.

Good-byes were said and then Ianto found himself in the car heading down to the bar where they were meeting the team. Jack was looking at him every now and again between conversation and watching the road but he hadn't asked about anything yet. He'd figure it out on his own before the night was through, Ianto gathered. Or else he'd tell him tomorrow. Better be sure that he knew the next time he saw Rhiannon.

In the meantime, however, there was a celebration to be had.

Gwen had booked one of those private rooms for them to get up to their antics and loud mouthed ways with as little interruptions as possible. Jack had assisted in this by simply being his overly flirty self. The staff had really been scared into submission, however, with a shocking death glare from Mel when one of the servers had inquired whether "her boyfriend" would be paying for her as well. After the woman had fled the room the real shocking moment had come when Harry looked over at Mel and said "well it is my turn, I think."

"Hold on!" Jack had yelped. He looked back and forth between their socially inept doctor and their abrasive technician. "You two are together?"

Harry nodded proudly while Mel simply said. "Maybe not after tonight after that display there, Harry."

"How long?" Gwen asked. "And who asked who?"

"The answer to how long would be three days ago," Mel answered coolly. "And I am not divulging the answer to the second question since I know full well of the bet you have with the Boss."

"What bet?" Harry asked. "What bet?"

Mel rolled her eyes but Ianto saw, now that he was looking for it, the slightest undercurrent of amusement in the gesture. It was official now, he decided, Torchwood was now a matchmaking service. Three relationships begun in the organization, one of which in death but it still counted. Torchwood is not responsible for the cluelessness of the parties involved and all that. Tosh and Owen had clued in at the end, literally, though. It was also pleasing to know that Harry and Mel decided to go for it. They had seen enough regret and broken hearts in their time. There was no time but the present to act on these feelings.

One of them could be dead tomorrow. He didn't want to think of it but there was always that idea. Was this how Jack felt, he wondered. Watching them all live their lives and enjoying their friendship knowing they'll be gone sooner rather than later. That and you were certainly going to outlive them. No questions there.

It was impossible to dwell on that. He'd spent years trying to teach that to Jack and it was something that he promised that he himself wouldn't do. He had his friends today and that what mattered most. Later that night he would dance with Mel and Gwen both, buy Rhys a beer and get the full play by play on the capture and beating of John Hart, and get the answer to Gwen's second question out of Harry with the promise to keep silent about it.

It wasn't his birthday he or anyone else was celebrating anymore. It was a celebration of completeness, unity, friendship, family, all that other stuff. They'd come together totally now. It would take death to get them apart now, and Ianto knew that death was far from the end as well. No matter who died or didn't die tomorrow, nothing would keep them apart. Not forever.

As the night was devolving into drunken antics, Ianto was currently babysitting the Gwen's margarita and Mel's Kilkenny, Jack slipped into the seat beside Ianto. "I want to give you this now before I get too drunk for you to take it seriously."

Jack pulled out a small box and Ianto couldn't help but gag. "If those are wedding bands I promise I will throw up on you."

"Not wedding bands," Jack assured him with all seriousness. "Just rings."

"I'm confused."

"I know you don't want to get married," Jack said. "I don't want to either. I do however want to show that I'm committed. That I'm not going to get tired of you in a few decades." Jack stopped for a moment and mouthed the words again, as if getting used to saying something important in a foreign language. "I never thought I'd ever say that. To anyone let alone you."

"You're stuck with me." Ianto informed him, saving him from the embarrassment of trying to get any more romantic than he already was. He took the smaller of the two rings and slipped it on. "For a very long time." He held out his hand.

Jack picked the last one up and put it on. He took Ianto's hand. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He threw Ianto that trademarked Harkness grin and Ianto matched it with his own understated smile.

"Now," Jack continued. "The last time you danced with me was nearly four years ago."

"I was extremely drunk too if I remember correctly."

"You do," Jack confirmed. "Care to give me a sober dance?" He rose and offered his hand.

"I think I can do that."

Ianto could do many things now. Many things that he never would have thought he could do or live to do. Giving his partner in immortality a dance was far from the most taxing.


End file.
